Killer Critique

by Alexander Campion

  “The man shot his wife’s lover with his shotgun. He confessed freely. That’s all there was to it. How many times have we seen that?”

  Capucine smiled as Martinière continued to scribble zealously. These leaky fountain pens were completely ridiculous. Why spend a fortune on obsolete, defective technology? Of course, she had a gold pen too. Dented, but still gold. Her parents had given it to her when she’d passed her bac. So did Alexandre. So did everyone, when you came to think about it. It was an entirely foolish affectation.

  Martinière capped his pen ostentatiously as a sign she was to continue her narrative.

  Capucine sat bolt upright in her chair.

  “Did you check carefully that this alleged perpetrator was not in Paris on the dates of the restaurant murders?”

  “Monsieur le Juge, it absolutely wasn’t necessary. There was clearly no connection between the crimes.”

  She stood up.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Monsieur le Juge, I’m afraid I have an urgent appointment I completely forgot about. Thank you for your time.” She bolted out the door.

  Waiting for the elevator, she punched the speed dial for her brigade on her cell phone and reached Isabelle.

  “I need the complete inventories of the personal effects of all three victims on my desk by the time I get there, which will be in twenty minutes.”

  The first victim, Gautier du Fesnay, had had a well-worn gold Waterman. Capucine remembered seeing it in his left inside breast pocket. The inventory listed it as “yellow-metal Waterman pen, used condition” and gave no other description.

  Jean Monteil, the second victim, had had two pens in his possession, a plastic Pilot Fineliner fine-point felt-tip and a white ballpoint marked HÔTEL COSTES on the clip.

  So much for the theory of pens as a fetish. It had been nice while it lasted.

  The third victim, Arsène Peroché, had had no pen. But he had had a small spiral-bound Clairefontaine notebook in his right outside jacket pocket. She had forgotten about that.

  Capucine went out to the squad room floor and into Isabelle’s cubicle.

  “Can you get someone in forensics to bring me Peroché’s notebook this afternoon? There’s something I don’t understand.”

  Sure enough, Peroché notebook was filled with his impressions of meals, written in a spiky hand with indelible black fountain pen ink. It took some time for her to decode, but in the end she got it. The notebook was filled with notations like, “R de V: p trop d.” Which was obviously, “Ris de Veau: pas trop dégueulasse—sweetbreads: not too disgusting.” That was the easy part. The tricky question was what had happened to his pen.

  CHAPTER 30

  While Capucine dealt with the juge, Alexandre had been dealing with his first haute cuisine restaurant review since Capucine had returned from Lille. The venue had been Le Grand Véfour, the doyen of Paris three-star restaurants, which, cradled in its lavish ormolu décor, had throned over the Palais Royal since the mid-seventeen hundreds. The occasion had been the launch of a new “bold and daring” menu, and the restaurant was to be packed with critics and the usual Paris beau monde. Capucine had originally planned to accompany him, but when the juge’s convocation arrived, she had assigned Momo in her stead. Despite her misgivings, she had issued her fiat without waiting for Alexandre’s response.

  Momo had returned to the brigade at three thirty in the afternoon. When pressed for details of the lunch, he had replied monosyllabically in terse army jargon, “RAS”—rien à signaler—nothing to report—and had lumbered off to his desk.

  Far less than sure that Alexandre was not a volcano building up pressure to erupt, Capucine arrived at the apartment at seven, a good hour earlier than usual. From the front door she could hear him singing in the kitchen. She kicked off her shoes and tiptoed down the long hallway, stopping a few feet short of the kitchen. Seriously off-key, he attempted Liporello’s catalog aria from Don Giovanni, counting Don Juan’s conquests.

  “Madamina,” Alexandre sang loudly, “il catalogo è questo—Little madam, this is the catalog. Italy six hundred forty. Germany two hundred thirty-one. Turkey ninety-one. Spain one hundred but in France already one thousand and three—ma in Francia son già mille e tre!”

  On the butchered final tremolo of “treeeeeeee!” Capucine entered the kitchen.

  “You’ve got it wrong,” she said. “In France it’s only a hundred. The one thousand and three are in Spain. I know because I wrote a paper on Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the aria when I was at Sciences Po.”

  “I’m not wrong. Mozart was wrong. It’s obvious Don Juan’s preference would have been for French women. Don’t be silly.”

  “You’re in an exceptionally good mood.”

  “I’m always in a good mood when I’ve had a superb lunch and I get to spend the evening closeted with”—he broke into song again—“youuuuuuuu!” He kissed Capucine lasciviously.

  She pushed him away. His insouciance was maddening. She had spent the whole day worrying about him and he had gone about his life utterly indifferent to the dangers he was facing—not to mention the extent of her concern. She hoped Momo had been a thorn in his side. He so richly deserved one.

  “I was sure you’d be in a pet because I made Momo go to your luncheon with you.”

  “Au contraire. Momo is an exemplary companion. I might even hire him as a permanent assistant. Not only does he have the delicacy to remain silent during the meal—no mean accomplishment—but he has a highly developed palate.”

  “He does?”

  Alexandre went to the refrigerator, produced a bottle of Deutz champagne, deftly opened it with the merest burp of a pop, and poured them both flutes.

  “He acted more like a restaurant critic than I did. I thought he would want to stand behind my back, glowering at the waiters as they came up, making everyone feel ill at ease. But he didn’t. He just sat down next to me at the long table where the critics were placed and said nothing at all. Of course, in that crowd they mistake silence for profundity so he was a great hit.”

  “I’m amazed.”

  “And he certainly knows how to order. For the appetizers he jumped on the duck foie gras served on a slice of pickled watermelon and left me to the quail eggs and caviar. Then for the main course, with a deadpan face, he beat me to the blue lobster with a sauce of tomato, bell pepper, and cucumber, sprinkled with a vinaigrette made from nasturtium petals. I had to console myself with a sole fillet served with a shellfish emulsion.”

  “Poor baby. How you must have suffered.”

  “Actually, it was rather fun. He let me snitch forkfuls from his plate. And it was the first time I’ve ever had a bodyguard. So, here I am, safe and sound, returned to the family foyer, getting ready to cook you dinner.”

  “More cutting edge haute cuisine?”

  “No, tonight we’re having a night off. I’m going to make you a simple tournedos wrapped in thick bacon, the perfect backdrop for an excellent Saint-Emilion that’s been breathing happily, waiting for you to lap it up. But it’s at least an hour before dinnertime.”

  “And how are we going to fill that hour?”

  “I had formulated a little plan if you came home early, but instead I think I’ll make you a béarnaise and some pommes de terres persillées.”

  “Oh, I can easily do without butter sauce and potatoes.”

  Alexandre clucked his tongue. “It’s true that Baudelaire said that man can live for three days without food but only three seconds without poetry, but that was only because he had never tasted my béarnaise. Sit and tell me about your case while I whip this up.”

  With an old nailbrush he vigorously scrubbed two large handfuls of inch-wide, perfectly spherical potatoes. “Grenaille—grapeshot—from Brittany. I found some at the market this morning,” Alexandre said.

  He selected an enormous chef’s knife from a magnetic wall rack and began chopping tarragon with great élan.

  “So what’s new with the case
?” Alexandre asked, yelling over the din.

  “I saw the shrink again yesterday. He succeeded in confusing me even more.”

  “That’s better than I can do,” Alexandre said, admiring his meticulous green pile.

  “He kept talking about the big Other and Mirror Images and a lot of things I didn’t fully understand.”

  “Ah, I’ll bet he’s into Lacan’s famous jouissance” Alexandre said.

  “Doesn’t jouissance mean ‘getting it off’?”

  “Not for Lacan it didn’t. It was all about fulfillment so intense it’s painful and unsettling,” Alexandre murmured, absorbed with his sauce.

  With the concentration of a watchmaker he chopped a shallot into minuscule cubes, cutting into it horizontally, then vertically, and then making precisely aligned slices. He threw the diced shallot into a venerable copper pot, splashed in a sprinkle of tarragon vinegar, and added two pinches of the chopped tarragon. While he waited for the concoction to come to a boil, with the dexterity of a conjurer, he tossed a nut of butter on a hot skillet, then put the potatoes in a Pyrex dish, added some sprigs of rosemary, topped it with a thin stream of olive oil and a sprinkle of fleur de sel, and placed it carefully in the oven.

  As he put the tournedos on the sizzling skillet, he asked, “And that’s what you do with this fellow? Hang around and discuss Lacan’s arcane theories?”

  “No, of course not. We also eat. We had langoustine en papillotes with basil pistou. I made an effort to remember just so I could tell you.”

  “You know, that sounds very much like something from Joëlle Robuchon’s summer menu. You don’t mean to tell me that the DGSE is having its hamper filled at Robuchon’s twice a day just to feed some intellectual hobo?”

  “No wonder it was so good. And he’s not just ‘some hobo.’ He’s a brilliant psychiatrist who seems to have had serious problems on an assignment for them that resulted in a degree of, well, psychological disarray.”

  Alexandre apparently decided that the ingredients in his pot had done what he wanted them to do and placed the copper saucepan in a round steel bowl filled with ice water.

  “So that was it?”

  “No, no, of course not. There was a caille en brochette caramélisée sur un frou frou de légumes révélés de wasabi.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “The wine was a Côte de Vaubarousse.”

  “That’s not what I meant either. But the Vaubarousse must have been exceptional. What year?”

  “Two thousand and five.”

  “Ahhh. A bit early to drink a grand cru like that. Dommage .”

  The base of the sauce had apparently reached the desired temperature in the ice bath and Alexandre put it back on the stove, added three yolks, and began whisking them with intense concentration. Capucine knew the look. Nothing would distract him from his task until the sauce was done. At some point—known only to alchemists—he deemed the yolks done and began whipping in small pieces of butter. His frenzy must have been rewarded because he exhaled deeply, emitting a “Voilà.”

  “Voilà quoi?” Capucine asked.

  “It took. That’s always the tricky moment. The rest is pure mechanics.” He continued, stirring in small pieces of butter. “And your brilliant hobo had nothing to say about the crimes?”

  “We talked a lot about fetishes.”

  “I fervently hope the message got through. I’ve always had a hankering to see you in a bustier with a garter belt and mesh stockings. Possibly even with a long whip. Did he give you any sharp pointers?”

  “Actually he did. He seemed to think the murderer might collect symbolic fetishes from his victims to prolong the feeling of relief the crimes give him. The only problem with that theory is that nothing seems to be missing from the bodies.”

  “Hmm,” Alexandre said, again distracted by his sauce. He whisked in the last lump of butter, then a pinch of salt and three twists of white pepper, tasted, and nodded happily with a French moue of contentment. He threw in a large double pinch of chopped tarragon, whisked violently, and put the copper pot back in the now almost tepid ice bath.

  “Voilà. Let’s see how our potatoes are doing.” He pricked one with a paring knife, pronounced them ready and slid the tournedos onto a serving dish.

  “Madame est servi,” he said with a flourish of an imaginary plumed chapeau.

  For a long moment the meal created a hiatus in the conversation. But halfway through Alexandre looked at Capucine and asked, “And is your al fresco genius capable of predicting the date of the next murder?”

  “No. But he did seem convinced that there would be one. Which, in a way, was a relief.”

  “Really? I would have thought the contrary.”

  The meal over, they moved to Alexandre’s study for an Armagnac. Capucine realized she still had her Sig and handcuffs tucked into the back of her trousers. She put the holstered pistol on a table and twirled the handcuffs coquettishly on her index finger.

  “I had no idea you felt that way about fetishes,” she said.

  Alexandre rose, his eyebrows histrionically raised, put one arm around Capucine’s waist, and caught the handcuffs in mid-rotation.

  “Be careful with those,” Capucine said. “I’ve lost the key.”

  Alexandre nuzzled her neck. Capucine leaned into him. Her cell phone rang.

  Capucine flipped it open and listened intently for thirty seconds while Alexandre stared blankly at her.

  She put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, “This time it was Sébastien Laroque. He’s still alive but only barely. The SAMU are with him.”

  Alexandre mouthed, “Where?”

  Capucine put her hand over the mouthpiece again. “That awful restaurant, Dong, you know, where the jeunesse dorée go to be seen and eat badly. Hang on. They’re putting the SAMU medic on.”

  She listened again, thanked whoever it was who had spoken, and cupped the bottom of the cell phone again. “They found him in one of the stalls in the men’s room. His dinner companions became alarmed when he didn’t return after twenty minutes, and asked the waiter to investigate. The SAMU have him on a respirator but it doesn’t look like he’s going to make it.”

  Capucine said, “Merci. I’m on my way,” and snapped the phone shut.

  “Merde,” said Alexandre. “I had lunch with Sébastien only two or three weeks ago. He was bitching about that review. His magazine, the Nouvel Observateur, had assigned it weeks ago. They wanted him to dis the place because it offended the Nouvel Obs’ liberal notion of what restaurants are supposed to be. He was putting it off because even though it’s totally moneygrubbing and commercial, the young chef is supposed to be a genius when it comes to Asian-French fusion.” Alexandre spoke barely above a whisper.

  Capucine took Alexandre in her arms and stroked his back. Her husband’s pain soaked into her. The last thing she wanted to do was leave him. She squeezed, wrenched herself away, crammed the Sig and the handcuffs back into her waistband, and walked out the door without a word.

  CHAPTER 31

  The restaurant Dong, the scene of the crime, was just across the Seine, normally a ten minute drive. Capucine clapped the pulsing blue dome light on the dashboard of the Twingo, put her foot to the floor, and made it in five. During those few minutes her cell phone was in constant use, occupying her left hand, leaving her right to cope alternately with gearshift and steering wheel, a demanding feat on the twisting streets of the Marais.

  She called the front desk of her brigade to make sure a contingent of uniformed officers was on its way to the crime scene and that the forensic squad had been alerted. As she was punching in the speed dial for Isabelle she received a call from the central Police Judiciaire switchboard: Sébastien Laroque had died and the SAMU were leaving the scene. Isabelle answered on the fourth ring in a whisper as if she were trying very hard not to wake someone. Next Capucine called David, who seemed to be in a nightclub with ferociously loud background noise. As they spoke the noise faded and then
disappeared. David was already out the door on the street and on his way. She knew Momo would be asleep, but he picked up in the middle of the first ring as alert as if he had been waiting for her call.

  Capucine had been to Dong once, when she went with Alexandre to the opening. It was the latest in a long string of overpriced, overdecorated restaurants created by a famous television impresario. Dong was his most extravagant to date. He had leased the top floor of a nineteen thirties department store on the Seine’s quai overlooking the Ile de la Cité. The entire front of the site was covered in a glass dome, which—undeniably—had a magnificent view of the City of Light. Then he had hired Georges Orné, the celebrated designer, to conjure up an unforgettable décor. Orné had lived up to his reputation, creating a room full of glowing, bottom-lit Lucite chairs and tables infused with light pastel hues that changed continually throughout the evening in a ballet of muted colors. Even Alexandre had had to admit that the mise-en-scène was a perfect complement to the view through the glass dome.

  It was the food that had sparked the controversy. The impresario had hired the brilliant young Japanese sous-chef of one of the fabled three-star restaurants to come up with a Japanese-French fusion menu. The dishes sounded hokey enough: Belle and Zen Duo of Foie Gras, Yellowtail Carpaccio, Glam-Chic Tomatoes, but—truth be told—they were far better than expected.

  Still, it had become the official restaurant Parisians in the know loved to hate.

  Capucine arrived at the downstairs front door of the restaurant just as the forensics squad was unloading its gurney and aluminum containers of equipment from their van. She rode up in the elevator with Ajudant Dechery who intoned in his basso profundo, “We’re seeing altogether too much of each other, Commissaire. You need to put a stop to this or people will begin to gossip.” Capucine suspected he was using his seniority to be assigned consistently the series of restaurant murders.

  As they walked into the dining room, the seventy or so diners fell silent and turned to stared at them, their bottom lit faces as eerily luminous as Degas’ ballet dancers. Five uniformed Paris police officers milled, trying hard to look purposeful.