by Gerald Jay
Bennett thought it possible that in some fashion Pellerin and Blond might still be working for the French government. Which might explain the reference to the Quai d’Orsay. What he remembered about both of them was that they were graduates of the prestigious École Nationale d’Administration and gay. With their elite education and personal relationship they always seemed to feel like outsiders in the DGSE, where most senior positions were reserved for ex-soldiers, ex-cops. A rogue operation, however, would suit them well—especially if economic espionage were involved. In that case, Schuyler Phillips would have been the most likely target.
Though Bennett had a strong sense that there was a web linking the Hotel Adlon to the quadruple killings in Taziac, he couldn’t fathom how the murder of Phillips and the three others could be, as Pellerin said, “worth every centime to our friends.” Who were these generous friends? And then, of course, there was the little problem of the identity of the killer. Who was this Herr Reiner?
38
THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR
Sleeping, which was once second nature to Mazarelle, had become a lost art, and the death of Ali Sedak hadn’t made it any easier. Not to mention how much he’d been drinking lately. He was glad he still had a major murder case to unravel or he might be seriously depressed. The inspector pulled out his passkey and went in through the McAllisters’ back door, turned on the lights, and glanced around. Everything looked just the way it had the last time he’d been there. Yet he couldn’t help feeling something was out of place, and as he tried to pin down what it was, he heard someone upstairs. Motionless, Mazarelle listened hard, but the footsteps had ceased. Had he imagined them? Lately he was more and more jumpy. He searched for his pipe but must have left it in his office.
Then he heard the sound of the car pulling up outside. It was Lambert, who had made good time and brought everything he’d asked for. Mazarelle hurried into the kitchen with Lambert in tow and, after irritably rummaging through a couple of drawers, found the key that McAllister had mentioned.
“Come on.” Mazarelle limped quickly into the living room and opened the gun case.
“Nice smell,” said Lambert, placing the rolls of canvas, wrapping paper, and tape he was carrying down on the floor.
“Cedar,” the inspector said. “That’s odd.”
“How so?”
“That’s usually used for hope chests, not guns.”
They both slipped on their latex gloves. Mazarelle took out the double-barreled shotgun first, cracked it open to make sure it was unloaded, then looked it over from butt to barrel, and sniffed the muzzle.
“Has it been fired recently?”
“It’s been fired, but I’ve no idea how recently. Could have been ten years, ten months, or only ten hours ago. More important is whether it’s the gun that murdered Schuyler Phillips. For that, we’ll have to wait to hear what they say in Toulouse after they run ballistics and we find out if we have a match. As for me, I’m feeling lucky, so take it.” He handed him the gun. “Wrap it up carefully, and guard it with your life.”
The other gun—a Mannlicher-Carcano—was also unloaded. To Mazarelle, who was no small arms expert, it appeared to be in good shape, as if it hadn’t been used very often.
But even if it had never been fired, which was highly unlikely, this one in the hands of an accomplice who left prints still might have played a part in the murders.
Lambert packed up the rifle and laid it down gently beside the other one on the table. The inspector’s plan was for Lambert to take his car and express the guns down to PTS, where Lambert was to personally hand them to Didier for testing. And if Mazarelle didn’t get the test results by the next day, he swore he’d come down there himself to get them.
“Not to worry. I’ll tell him, boss. But first,” he asked, looking around, “where’s the toilet?”
“Try upstairs. And step on it. Meanwhile give me the keys to your car and I’ll load up the trunk.”
By the time the impatient Mazarelle had locked the guns in the police car’s trunk and checked out the garage, which was empty except for what looked to him like fresh tire tracks, he’d expected Lambert to be ready to go. What the hell was keeping him? Was he shitting his brains out? There was no sign of him when he went back inside the house. Mazarelle, pulling himself along the banister, went up the stairs two at a time in search of his missing squad member. The hallway was deserted.
“Come on, Lambert!” he trumpeted. “Move your ass and let’s go.” Mazarelle had heard strange tales about constipated people sitting on a crapper for as long as half an hour who had fainted dead away, suffered heart attacks. He went down the hall peering into the empty rooms and banging his fists on the closed doors.
“A minute, boss. I’m coming.”
There was a loud rushing of water followed by Lambert stepping out from behind a door with a newspaper in his hands. He waved it in Mazarelle’s face.
“Did you ever see this article? It’s a piece on the Taziac murders, our task force, Sedak’s suicide, and all about you and the big murder cases you handled in Paris and how you tracked Sedak down. It makes a good story.”
The inspector snatched the copy of Sud Ouest out of his hands. There was a large photograph of L’Ermitage on the front page. His eyes dashed nonstop over the article’s opening paragraph, but that was enough.
“Where did you get this?” He returned the paper.
“It was over there on the stool.”
“Did you happen to notice that it was dated yesterday? That’s when I read it in the commissariat. Whoever left it here was in this house—probably sitting exactly where you were just now. And might still be in here for all we know.” The full impact of his realization galvanized Mazarelle into action. “There’s a room upstairs. Make sure it’s empty. I want you to check all the hiding places up there no matter how small, even mouseholes, and leave nothing to chance. After that, see if you can get into the attic. I’ll take care of the rest of the house. Hurry, Lambert, but watch yourself.”
Mazarelle sped through the rooms, flew down the halls like a heat-seeking missile. There were no surprises. “How about you?” he asked, when his man returned.
“Nothing.” Lambert brushed the cobwebs off his jacket with the newspaper he was holding as he came downstairs. “By the way, did I show you this?” He flipped the pages until he found where the article he’d been reading was continued. Holding it up in front of his boss, he poked his face playfully through the hole. “Somebody removed part of the ending.”
The inspector turned the page around and felt a chill go through his bones. There had been something printed there that had been ripped from the page. “It was a picture of me,” he recalled.
“One of your many fans, no doubt.” Lambert was enjoying his boss’s discomfort.
“No. No fan.”
The edgy Mazarelle’s lips barely parted as he dismissed the idea, his angular jaw tense. Holding the paper up by its corners, he examined the jagged hole in the page. The eye of the house seemed to be watching every move he made. It gave him one of the most peculiar feelings that he’d ever had. It felt as if suddenly, after a long and difficult hunt, he himself had become the hunted.
39
A HIGH-RISK GAME
Reiner’s love of the game had brought him back to the rue Blanche. He hadn’t been to the Café Valon since his meeting there with Ali Sedak, but Javert remembered. Even though the Valon was crowded, Javert found him almost as soon as he sat down at a small table in the rear of the noisy, smoke-filled café. The dog sniffed the newcomer’s shoes, his cuffs.
An elderly customer at the next table who’d noticed the two of them said, “You make friends easily. Javert doesn’t like everybody who comes in here.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t deny it. “I’m okay with animals. It’s people I’m lousy with.”
That seemed to muzzle the nosy old fart. Reiner patted the mutt’s head, and the contented animal wagged his tail and trotted off. Everything should
be so easy, Reiner thought. His dinner with the American woman was set for the next night, and he was looking forward to their last meal together, an end, finally, to this gottverdammt job. Then good-bye Molly, adieu Taziac. Meanwhile he’d only time to kill—too much time. But with a glass of rouge and a cig, he felt right at home.
Reiner studied the TV screen high up at the far end of the bar. Amused that despite the Barcelona sportscaster’s description of the weather for the big game as sunny, the thick cigarette smoke in the café made the Spanish city appear surrealistically foggy, even sinister. How he would have enjoyed sitting in the stands at the Camp Nou stadium, happily wedged in with the more than ninety thousand fans already there. Reiner saw himself decked out in his red Bayern München cap, cheering wildly and having the time of his life.
Reporters were calling the Champions League final that year between England and Germany the highest-risk football match in a decade. On the Barcelona streets, five thousand policía were deployed to crack down on hooliganism. On the pitch, the umpire too had no patience for troublemakers. When a Manchester United thug collided violently with a Bayern forward within the box, the ump’s whistle instantly shrieked—a prelude to a German free kick. Reiner nodded his approval.
The English players formed their defensive wall in front of their goal. Reiner leaned forward, his eyes locked on the screen, as Bayern’s star midfielder Mario Basler positioned the ball. To have the superb Basler on his own dream team some day, Reiner would gladly empty out every penny in his piggy banks.
From twenty-five yards out, Basler approached the ball, planted his left foot, and rocketed the ball spinning into the air. It looked to Reiner as if it was going straight at one of the English players—his folded hands cupped protectively over the family jewels—but the ball curled round the base of the human wall and, faking out the keeper, buried itself into the bottom of the far corner of the goal. The Bayern supporters leaped to their feet, waving their arms, out of their minds, shouting gleefully.
Reiner lifted his wineglass—a silent toast to the brilliant precision of Mario Basler and his exquisite kick. Truly a thing of beauty. The football seemed to have eyes. Only six minutes into the game and the German team was already up 1–0. Though not a betting man, Reiner was sorry not to have bet on this one. Catching the widow’s eye, he ordered another glass of rouge.
After Basler’s early lightning bolt, the game was furiously contested by the two powerhouses. Back and forth, the action seesawed across the field punctuated by heart-stopping spikes of adrenaline. The English eleven, a scrappy team that fought hard, had been damn lucky. But the confident, alert Germans stopped them at every turn, deflecting their passes, smothering their shots, and counterattacking brilliantly. Reiner was sure that any minute they’d score again. Some time later, however, when Inspector Mazarelle came through the front door and asked a sweating Mickey V for the score as he hurried past with a clinking tray full of empty beer bottles, nothing had changed.
“Still one–zip, Bayern,” the owner replied. He put down the empties behind the bar.
The inspector glanced at the crowd. “You’re busting at the seams today.”
Since Mazarelle began working all hours on the L’Ermitage murders, he’d been dropping by late most evenings for a nightcap or a bite to eat, but even at night he’d never seen the Valon so busy. Usually it wasn’t a bad place for a quiet drink. Mickey was okay, the food passable, and when you were dealing with death all day it was nice to be surrounded by a little life. Best of all, after a few drinks, it was only a short walk down the narrow, gravel-covered back alley to his front door.
“It’s a big game,” was all the owner said, hurrying back for more empties, but that was enough. They were both football fans. The inspector went over to the bar. It was then he noticed Thérèse standing behind it staring at him.
“I didn’t expect to see you working again so soon,” he said.
“We have to live. You don’t work, you don’t eat.”
“Where’s the baby?”
“With a friend. What are you drinking?”
“Give me a cognac.”
“Anything to eat with it?”
He glanced at the lunch specials listed on the chalkboard. “How are your sausages and lentils today?”
“Same as usual. Nothing to crow about. You want it or not?”
“With mustard.”
He could tell she still blamed him for her husband’s death even after he’d explained what happened. Rather than send somebody else, he’d gone to the old mill himself to tell her. He felt he owed her that. If Ali didn’t deserve to die—if he’d simply run out of luck—and she had a legitimate gripe, it was one he could live with. She didn’t believe him when he said it was suicide. Demanded to know what her husband’s last words were. For some reason, Mazarelle hadn’t expected that she actually loved the creep. There’s no telling what people set their yearning hearts on, tossing them away like empty cans. Recalling her drawn, frightened face, he would have liked to reply, “Your name.” Or to have told her that Ali confessed to the killings, and see if she’d spill the beans. In fact, he just told her the truth.
Thérèse returned with the cognac and suggested he find a seat somewhere if he could. She’d bring him the sausages when they were ready.
“With mustard,” he reminded her, and handed her a bill.
“Forget it. Mickey says it’s on the house.”
“Okay, you keep it.”
As Mazarelle made his way to the rear of the café, he noted that as usual most of the people there were locals. He waved back to some of the blue overalls from the scrap metal shop up the block who congratulated him. “You see, Inspector,” their boss shouted, “business in the village is picking up already, thanks to you.” Mazarelle wanted to straighten him out then and there, but decided another time. Spotting an empty chair with a leather jacket on it at a nearby table, he limped over, asked the guy with the long hair if it was taken. Glued to the game, the stranger ignored him. At the next table, an old guy who knew the inspector by sight—a mountain of a man with a mustache—timidly eyed what was going on. Hoping for fireworks.
“Mind some company?” Mazarelle asked again.
“Company?” The stranger, looking irritated, peered up at Mazarelle.
Most summers there were tourists around Taziac, but not many newcomers wandered off the beaten track and found their way to the Café Valon—especially this summer. The inspector wondered who he was. Positive he’d never seen him before. But what was odd to Mazarelle, though it might have been his imagination, was that the stranger seemed to recognize him.
“I love company,” the stranger decided. “Sit down, sit down.”
Reiner couldn’t believe what he’d just done. Rather than fleeing danger, he seemed perversely eager to court it these days, even revel in it, testing himself in the crucible of risk. He was amazed at how he’d changed since coming to France. Hardly recognized himself anymore. A sure sign that he never should have returned.
Mazarelle picked up the leather jacket, which had a strong, musty smell that was not unfamiliar to him. “This yours?” he asked, sitting down.
Reiner grabbed his jacket and tossed it over the back of his chair. “Did that guy over there call you inspector? You a flic?”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Inspector Mazarelle?”
“How did you know?”
“I saw your face in the newspaper. You take a nice picture.”
“Good sleuthing. You should be in my business. What’s your name?”
Reiner smiled. The flic had absolutely no idea who he was. He was really enjoying himself. The situation was priceless—sitting side by side with the man assigned to track him down. He had this wild urge to tempt fate a bit more. Why stop when you’re having fun? Live a little. “You’re the guy who captured the L’Ermitage murderer, aren’t you?” Raising his glass with a nice flourish, he said, “Chapeau, Inspector.”
“
Thanks, but nobody’s caught him yet.”
Reiner turned from the game and stared at the police officer. His voice when it came had lost its twinkle. “What’s that supposed to mean? I read in the paper that you’d caught him.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
Reiner shrugged. “These days you can’t trust anybody.”
“You’re right about that.” Why didn’t he want to give him his name? Mazarelle had the creepy feeling that this guy was laughing at him. He wondered if Ali’s death had him looking over his shoulder now, hearing footsteps. Mickey V’s dog, tail wagging, trotted over to Mazarelle. The inspector grabbed him and gave Javert his usual affectionate two-fisted pat that was more like a firm Swedish massage.
“No wonder he likes you,” said Reiner. “He’s a flic too. How come you became a cop?”
Mazarelle considered his question and chuckled. “Not trusting people, for one thing. Another, I suppose, is my father was a fire chief. I figured I’d try something different. What about your father?”
“A nonentity.” Reiner dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. He had little desire to pursue it.
The inspector refused to let him off the hook. “I’m interested,” he insisted. “What did he do?”
“Not much. He was injured in the army. Couldn’t find a job when he came home, so mostly he just hung around. A dull life neatly rounded off by a boring death. Except for his stay in the military, the only risk he ever took was getting up in the morning.”
Mickey V came over, put down the steaming special, and, like magic, produced a jar of mustard from under his apron. “Thérèse says this is yours.”
Mazarelle sniffed. “Smells good.”
“Are you coming in for dinner this evening?” the owner asked. “The chef’s special tonight is duck confit, one of your favorites.”
