“What the hell was that? An animal?” Patric asked as I felt mortified.
A second sneeze uncontrollably shook my body as Patric and Yves walked towards the bushes. Still sneezing, I sped into motion, running towards the car as the men cursed and shouted behind me.
“Isabelle! Is that you?!” Patric boomed in shock. “I knew I couldn’t trust you!”
I glanced over my shoulder watching as Yves squeezed himself into his sedan and drove in the opposite direction. Patric had slipped back into the house, perhaps to get his own car keys. Hiding would be futile at this point; the only chance he had of escape was by getaway car. Inexplicably, I giggled, thinking how absurd it was that Yves had driven away without him. I guess the fat old fellow meant to have his revenge against reptilian Patric.
Breathlessly, I reached the police car, flinging the door open and hurling myself onto the seat. The officers regarded me avidly, waiting for me to speak.
“Quick!” I urged. “Patric’s accomplice just drove away! And I’m sure Patric is going to try to escape too! Go after them! That way!”
“What happened? We couldn’t pick up anything on our earpieces,” the driver gritted, climbing a curb in his haste to turn the car around.
“That’s because I just listened to a conversation between Patric and Yves!” I conveyed, still trying to catch my breath.
“Who the hell is Yves?” The other officer barked.
“Patric’s accomplice! He’s the head baker at Collette’s Pastry Shop where I work…or I mean he used to be! I overheard him confessing to baking the emeralds into his cream puffs so that the other accomplice, the female one, could flee the country without being caught!” My words were glued together in quick succession as the officers swore as violently as the criminals just had.
“Damn it, we have to get them! All of them! Call for back up! And get some officers to scour the house Patric was hiding in! We don’t have time to get a search warrant. Either we get them now, or we lose them!” Driving like an out of control avatar in a video game, the cop smacked his hand on the armrest and let out a grunt of frustration.
“I hope the wind wasn’t too loud for the recorder to pick up their confessions,” I interjected as Xavier held my hand again for support.
“We have all kinds of advanced audio technology that can raise the volume and eliminate outside sounds. If you were within 1,000 feet of the criminals, we’ll be able to extract their confession. But that won’t matter if the bastards get away!”
I looked out the window, knowing that at least one of the criminals had already gotten away. That slow moving lardass Yves had actually managed to slip away in his car. In the frenzied moments when I was running back to the police car, I hadn’t been able to discern even one letter or number on the license plate. But it was obvious that Yves was just a minor player in all of this. One of Patric’s pawns. Patric and Chérie were the ones who really needed to be caught.
“Chérie is on her way to Italy!” I blurted out as the crucial detail surfaced in my harried mind. “Patric says that she’s going to sell the jewels on the Black Market. Then they’re supposed to split up the cash, and Yves is going to get a share too.”
“Great. Now we need Interpol,” the cop muttered, referring to Europe’s international police organization. “This just keeps getting uglier and uglier.”
Xavier caressed my hand as I leaned against his shoulder, feeling the adrenaline leave my body. I felt like I had failed in the police mission. Even though I seriously doubted seducing Patric would have worked---he was suspicious from the moment he saw me just as I knew he would be---at least I could have prevented that deafening sneeze. Maybe if I had stayed quiet and tiptoed back to the car, Patric and Yves never would have noticed me. Then, the police could have discreetly pulled up in front of the hideaway house and nailed down the admitted criminals. Why didn’t I just pinch my nose to stop the catastrophic sneeze?!
Pressing my lips against Xavier’s ear, I whispered, “You were right. I do have a sneeze that could wake the dead!”
“Huh?” He muttered, reflexively pulling away as my breath fanned against his earlobe.
“The reason Patric and Yves started running is that they heard me sneeze!” I whispered as softly as I could, although with the commotion of shouting and walkie talkies in the front seat I doubted the cops could hear me.
Xavier stifled a laugh. “Well, if anything would make a man run, it’s that bombastic sneeze!”
I jabbed him in the shoulder with a pointy fingernail as he winced. “Sharp, aren’t they?” I provoked as he returned to his placid state and slid over to the other side of the vehicle where he was safe from my finger blades.
“We’re dropping you off at the police station,” the driver announced. “There might be a car chase, and we can’t risk civilian lives.”
“Am I free to go back to Paris?” I asked, brutally disappointed that I wasn’t going to experience a thrilling car chase.
“Yes, of course you are. But we would prefer if you stayed nearby. We might still need your assistance,” he responded with a shadow of a plea in his otherwise commanding voice.
“I’ll stay,” I declared. “And I wouldn’t mind coming along for the ride even if there is a car chase,” I added hopefully.
The officers laughed heartily. “You’re a brave young woman, Mademoiselle Nouvelle. But we need you to give a description of Yves so a sketch can be drawn up. And here we are outside the police station. Go ahead. We have your phone number, and believe me we’ll use it if we need you again.” Each officer reached into the back seat to shake my hand as I felt even more like a failure. They thought I was brave, but what had I done other than cooperate?
Xavier and I exited the car and rounded a bend into the police station. Detective Morceau was seated in a glass enclosed office, gesticulating maniacally as he communicated on the phone. Upon noticing Xavier and me, he waved us over to his office, unlocking the door and setting down his phone.
“I guess you heard what happened?” I surmised.
“Of course. Now what do you know about this Yves?” Detective Morceau asked avidly, poised with a notebook and pencil to jot down all the pertinent details.
“Not very much. He was the head pastry chef at the bakery where I work in Paris. He just got fired actually…” I stopped myself, recalling an odd comment Yves had muttered after Collette gave him the boot. “Come to think of it, I’m not that surprised that he was involved in a jewel heist. When my boss fired him, he whispered something about being ready to quit anyway and that he didn’t need to work there.”
Detective Morceau glanced up from his notebook with momentary interest, then furrowed his brow. “Well, a comment like that makes perfect sense considering what he confessed to. Implicating him in the crime shouldn’t be a problem. It’s finding and capturing him that could prove to be very tricky. Did you get a look at the car he was driving?”
“Not at all,” I replied sullenly. “It all happened so fast.” Unraveling the recording device, I handed it to the detective who swiftly plugged it into a set of speakers.
“Let’s see what audio you were able to get for us.” He pressed play as a garbled jumble of noises streamed through the speakers. Distantly, male voices were audible, but their words were incomprehensible. Gripping his desk tightly, the frustrated detective stopped the track. “I’m going to have to send this down to the audio lab. The only thing we’ll get out of listening to this tape raw is a migraine.”
“The other police officers said that they have enough technology to salvage their entire conversation. Is that true?” I asked hopefully.
Detective Morceau was prudent in his reply. “Ideally, yes. But we can’t guarantee it. Fortunately, they have a brilliant audio lab in Marseille, and if they enhance the sound enough, we should be able to hear the entire conversation. Hopefully.”
“But even if the technicians can enhance the audio enough, it’s useless if the criminals are on the run,” Xavier
pointed out pessimistically as I glared at him.
“That is correct,” Detective Morceau replied gloomily. “That’s why we have every Interpol agent we can find working on catching them. Border police have also been notified in Italy, which reminds me, where is that damn sketch artist? We need your description of the mysterious Yves. Anguisson’s mug is already on file---many times over---so he should be much easier to catch, although he’s a slippery one. And we also have a sketch of Chérie based on the information you provided us in Paris.”
Detective Morceau buzzed an adjacent office, and a middle aged man with a chestnut beard and penetrating eyes joined us a moment later. Carrying a sketch pad and pencil, he sat down across from me and skillfully developed a composite of Yves as I described the fugitive.
“Yes, that’s exactly what he looks like!” I marveled, feeling that these police sketchers were magicians rather than artists.
Promptly, the sketch was scanned into the crime database so that agencies all over France and Italy would have a bird’s eye view of the criminal. After the sketch artist left, there wasn’t much that Xavier and I could do other than wait and try to stay awake. The hour was late, sometime past midnight just like when I had witnessed Chérie running away with the bag of pastries. Never would I have guessed back then that the pastries contained emeralds stolen from the Louvre!
“Maybe we should head back to Paris,” Xavier suggested through heavy-lidded eyes that betrayed how sleep deprived he was. “If we can even catch a train at this hour.”
“You can go if you want to, Xavier, but I’m staying here. I want to be here when they get Patric and his mafia!”
“No, I’ll stay with you. But we might be waiting a long time. It can take months or even years to capture fugitives. These aren’t amateurs. They know how to make themselves scarce.”
“Why are you such a pessimist?” I complained.
“I’m a realist,” he corrected gently.
Outside Detective Morceau’s office, a flurry of activity caught my attention as sirens whined in my ears. “What’s going on?” I wondered aloud.
Police officers gathered at the entrance to the station as I stood up, using my height as an advantage to see what was happening. The door swung open, revealing one disheveled prisoner restrained in ankle chains and handcuffs.
Chapter 9
The prisoner fixed an ice cold stare on me as I hardly recognized the sneering face of Patric Anguisson. Accustomed to his oozing charm and horizon-wide smile, I couldn’t reconcile the haggard, menacing image he presented in handcuffs. Instinctively, Xavier placed a protective arm around my waist to shield me from the venom seeping out of Patric’s gaze.
“It was supposed to be you! You were supposed to take the fall!” Patric raved, inserting a sexist expletive that made my pulse pound furiously.
“What is he talking about?” I whispered shakily to Xavier.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Detective Morceau advised, “and I would recommend that you do.”
But Patric unleashed a torrent of rage, all directed inexplicably at me. “You should be arrested too! You snooping idiot!” The name calling became more vicious as I tuned it out, trying to make sense of why he was so livid with me.
Certainly, I had come to Marseille as an informant for the police department, but it wasn’t my fault that he had stolen the jewels! As two officers hauled him past a security checkpoint, Patric’s malicious words replayed in my head. You were supposed to take the fall! Had he been planning to set me up and use me as a scapegoat? I did assist with some of the baking at Collette’s Pastry Shop, so I conceivably could have been the one who planted the emeralds inside the cream puffs. And that was exactly what Patric had wanted everyone to believe. My mouth tightened as I realized that our coffee shop conversation and all the cat calls to me on the street had been part of his cruel plan to frame an innocent bystander.
“He wanted me to take the blame for his crime!” I hissed to Xavier who nodded his understanding.
“I know. But his evil plan didn’t work. He will probably never see the light of day again.”
Just before Patric was dragged past a sound proof partition to a holding cell, he managed to spout one more irrational remark. “Those emeralds are rightfully mine anyway! Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine is a distant ancestor of mine. I’m in her bloodline! They’re MY emeralds! You have no right to lock me up!”
Detective Morceau chuckled and shook his head as I asked, “Why is he saying such ridiculous things?”
“Clearly paving the way for an insanity defense. He’s a criminal, but he’s no fool. Anyone would rather be sentenced to an insane asylum than a French prison.” The detective didn’t seem even remotely unnerved by Patric’s outbursts.
“How clever,” I muttered sarcastically, still fuming from the disgusting language he had directed at me and his intention to have me serve a sentence for a crime he committed. “He should have been nicer to me,” I snapped with richer sarcasm. “Next year at this time, I’ll be a lawyer. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even be part of the prosecution team in his case!”
Xavier looked at me with intense admiration. “I hope you are, Isabelle. That would be more justice than any court could dish out!”
We shared a much needed laugh before joining the arresting officers at the front of the station to hear their story of the capture. Proudly, a female officer with a tidy auburn ponytail said, “He’s all out of time, that Anguisson. He made a huge mistake by stealing his cousin’s car and using it to get away. Since we knew where Anguisson was staying, it was easy to track the registration and license number of the vehicle. He hadn’t gotten more than a mile out of Marseille when we had him surrounded.”
“And did you call his bluff?” Detective Morceau asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “Told him we had his entire confession crystal clear on tape. He had no problem believing that because he had already seen our brave sleuth standing on the sidewalk.” She pointed at me and smiled.
“What about Yves and Chérie?” I inquired, feeling incomplete with the other two criminals still on the lam.
“Well, thanks to your informing us that Yves worked at Collette’s Pastry Shop, we were able to obtain his last name and license plate too, so it’s just a matter of time before he’s caught. As for Chérie, we still don’t even know her last name, but I have a hunch Patric will rat her out if it will help his own case,” another officer interjected.
“But Chérie is his sister,” I argued. “Do you really think he would turn his own sister in?”
“Mademoiselle Nouvelle, those two are not brother and sister. Another tidbit that motor mouth Anguisson leaked in the car is that he’s worried about his girlfriend. She’s on her own now with a bag full of stolen jewels. As far as I’m concerned, that admission is the first step towards him telling us the whole story and leading us to her…and the emeralds.” Her ponytail swung as the police officer sighed deeply and shook hands with her colleagues, including a very pleased Detective Morceau.
“I think your work here is done,” Morceau announced, shaking my hand and then Xavier’s. “Thank you for everything you’ve done, Mademoiselle Nouvelle. I believe there’s a reward with your name on it.”
Beaming at the detective, I replied, “It was an honor to work with you, sir. I hope we’ll work together again after I graduate law school.”
“I have a feeling we will. You’re on your way to becoming an excellent attorney…and maybe a detective too. Just don’t try to steal my job. I don’t plan on retiring for quite a while.” The detective winked as Xavier and I strolled out into the fresh Mediterranean air.
Chapter 10
In unison, Xavier and I breathed a sigh of relief as we strode through the door of our apartment. Dumping my overnight bag on the floor, I used my free hands to massage the kinks that had formed in my neck and shoulders during our exhausting trek. Predictably, Xavier put on a pot of coffee and watched impatiently until it percolated
.
“I’m starved,” I announced, searching the countertop for a suitable snack.
Sticking my hand into the cookie jar and surfacing with a palm full of crumbs, I scolded Xavier good-naturedly. “We’re all out of cookies. I guess you must have dunked the last one in that endless vat of coffee you’re always drinking.”
Choking on a combination of java and laughter, he told me, “Try again. I’m pretty sure I left a jam biscuit in there for you.”
Reaching to the bottom of the jar, I didn’t find a jam biscuit, but I did unearth some other objects. My heart stopped as I pulled a trio of pebbles from the cookie jar. Holding them up to the light, I realized they were three tiny emeralds. “How did these get in the cookie jar?!” I shouted, rushing over to Xavier.
“Mon Dieu, I have no idea. Those were in the cookie jar?”
“Yes! But where did they come from? Patric is in jail now. And Yves and Chérie are no longer in Paris. Who else could have put them there?” A sick feeling spiraled around my stomach as I felt the case I had just slammed shut retract and strike me in the jaw.
Xavier was silent for several moments before bursting out, “Wait a second! Remember when you thought someone was in here that rainy night? And I didn’t believe you! Maybe Xavier or Chérie…or even Yves…snuck in that night and planted those emeralds in the cookie jar!”
I continued his line of reasoning. “Because Patric wanted to drag me into this mess and turn the attention away from him! I bet he was planning to give a false tip against me and have the cops come search our apartment. They would have found the emeralds, and we would be the ones in jail! That makes total sense.” My stomach felt even queasier at the thought of what would have happened if Patric’s diabolical plot had succeeded. “I still don’t understand why he wanted me up to his apartment for some so-called portrait painting, though.”
Sweet as Pie Crimes Page 12
