“Busy man,” Luc said. “Where was his wife?”
“At home in Paris. Or should I say at one of their homes. So the maid bumps into the headwaiter from room service, backing out of the suite with the tray table. She was anxious to get the room turned over so the manager could sell the suite again, or upgrade some VIP on a Saturday night arrival. So at five-forty-five, the waiter tells her he thinks the room is empty, ’cause he didn’t hear any noise inside when he opened the door to get the tray. But it’s huge, according to Mike. The living area alone is thirteen hundred square feet—and there’s a bedroom and two baths.”
“She went in?” Luc asked.
“Yes, the waiter told her she could get to work. So she announced herself and called out ‘housekeeping’ several times—just to be sure the guest was gone.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“How could she have known? The waiter closed the door behind her, and as she started to straighten up the room and strip the bed, out from the bathroom comes our perp.”
“He was—about to leave?” Luc asked.
“Apparently not. He was naked. Completely naked. Just out of the shower.”
“She should have taken off,” he said emphatically. “She should have left at once. She obviously caught him off guard.”
“I hope you’re just playing devil’s advocate. He obviously surprised her. She’d been told the room was unoccupied, okay? She announced herself, loud and clear, while the door was still open. She apologized and tried to back out. She told him she was sorry.”
“What stopped her from leaving?”
“The perp did. He grabbed her by the wrist and told her not to go, not to be sorry. She was scared, she told the cops. Frightened of him and just as frightened that she’d lose her job if she got into a screaming match with a high-rolling guest.”
“Did he threaten her?”
“I don’t know the exact words, but Mike said he did.”
“Well, if Mike told you, then it must be so,” Luc said flippantly, spearing a piece of crabmeat and devouring it.
“It doesn’t really matter what was verbalized, the guy threw her onto the bed. He lifted the skirt of her uniform, ripped her panty hose, and penetrated.”
Luc snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”
“Not just like that, okay? He had a head start by being naked, and aroused as well. He pinned her to the bed and was inside her briefly until she pushed him off, within a few seconds.”
“And that’s rape in your country?”
“I’m not done.” Forcible penile penetration, however slight and for however short a period of time, established the elements of the crime of first-degree rape. “Then he pushed her onto her knees, on the floor, and demanded oral sex. When he ejaculated, she spit it out.”
Luc had no smart answer for that fact.
“Semen on the carpet, on the wall of the room, and on her uniform. Sort of supports what she’s saying, don’t you think? And they’ll have DNA results by the end of the day.”
“So I guess he missed his plane,” Luc mused, stabbing another piece of the salad.
“To the contrary. The entire episode with the maid took twenty minutes, start to finish.”
“Not exactly a seduction, even for the most convincing Frenchman.”
“The hotel surveillance photos have him rushing out a bit later, toothpaste smeared across his cheek. A quick dinner with his daughter and he actually made it to the airport in time to board. If it wasn’t for the thick fog at JFK and an hour’s flight delay, he’d have reached home and be having brunch with his wife just about now.”
“I can’t imagine what makes that such an important case in the States,” Luc said, pushing the salad aside in anticipation of his langouste. “She’s just a chambermaid, after all.”
I hoped my sunglasses concealed the expression in my eyes. “I see. So that makes her—what? Not worthy of belief? Not entitled to justice? Or makes the perp too powerful to have our system bother with her?”
“No, no, darling.” Luc was searching for a way to back off his obvious prejudice. “I just mean it’s not international news, really, is it? That’s why Battaglia isn’t looking for you. Maybe one day of tabloid headlines, then back to business. Not likely to make the light of day in the French press.”
“I’ll bet you tonight’s caviar that you’re wrong.”
Luc was enjoying himself now. “And I was going to order up the finest beluga. Almas caviar, from Iran. It’s white, and among the rarest in the world. Shall we say a small tin for twenty-five thousand?”
“I’ll settle for something a little more subtle.”
“And why do you think you can win? It’s only seven in the morning in New York. I guess by dinnertime here we’ll have a clue.”
“Maybe if I tell you his name, you’ll concede on the spot.”
“So you buried the lede, did you? You know who he is?”
“I’m certainly betting that you do,” I said, as the waiter approached with a tray and Luc nodded approval of the large grilled langoustes that were set in front of us.
“I hope you don’t spoil my appetite, Alex. Who’s the guy?”
“Mohammed Gil-Darsin.”
Luc lost all interest in lunch and focused his attention on me. He let out a low whistle, clearly surprised by hearing the name. “MGD? The detectives must be pulling your leg, darling. It simply can’t be.”
“Why is that?”
“Well—well, he’s—uh—he’s brilliant, for one thing. He’s very popular in France, not to mention his political future at home. He’s got a fabulous wife.” Luc was stammering he was so agitated. “Mo’s a player, all right—but—uh—that’s different. I simply don’t believe he’d rape anyone. He wouldn’t have to, Alex. He’s quite attractive. Brains, power, money—all of that. I mean, really, darling—a chambermaid?”
I sat back on my chair and exhaled. It was as though every conversation I’d had with Luc about my work since we’d met had gone in one ear and out the other. If this was his attitude, I knew how most people hearing the news would also react.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“Papa Mo has lived in a villa in Grasse for thirty years.” Grasse was the town adjacent to Mougins, whose thousands of acres of jasmine and hyacinth had long made it the perfume capital of the world. “He was my father’s client long before he was mine.”
“He was a dictator, Luc. And a thief.”
“A scoundrel, maybe. I didn’t care much for his politics, but he’s a charming man.”
“I asked if you know MGD.”
Luc looked away from me, at a distant point out in the bay. “Of course I do, Alex, though not very well. He isn’t a close friend or anything like that. He’s a client, a customer. He was just in the restaurant for dinner a week ago.”
SEVEN
I had no appetite for lunch. Luc, it was clear, was happier eating than talking to me.
The sun, the champagne, and the lack of sleep the night before combined to knock me out on the lounge chair. When I opened my eyes an hour later, Luc was napping also.
Nina Baum, my college roommate—and still my best friend—had tried to put the brakes on my love affair with Luc. She liked him and understood what I found so appealing about him—his intelligence and accomplishments, his great sense of style and adventure, his romantic courtship of me—Nina got all that.
But she worried about the superficial nature of our relationship. I had no time for Luc when I was experiencing the demands of a trial that required all my intellectual energy and emotion. And I had little understanding of a career that appeared to be so glamorous, in contrast to mine, with problems no greater than overcooking the entrée or recommending the wrong wine—a career designed to provide pleasure to a consumer for as many hours as a great meal lasted.
As Luc worked ferociously hard to open a new business in New York, I had come to appreciate the demands on a restaurant owner and many of the obstacles in the
way of success. Had he absorbed nothing about the somewhat bizarre but fascinating professional world that gave me such great satisfaction?
He lifted his head and squinted at me. “Where are you, Alex? What are you thinking?”
“Nothing serious. I’m mesmerized by the view.”
“That’s as it should be,” he said, reaching over to me and squeezing my hand. “Another hour? This is the only spot in the world where I think I can let go of everything and nap.”
“Fine with me.”
On the other hand, my great friend Joan Stafford was entirely in favor of the way I had plunged headlong into this relationship. The writer and her husband, Jim Hageville, a world-renowned journalist, had married at my home on the Vineyard. Luc was a longtime friend of Jim’s—which added instant respectability to his credentials—and we met at my home on their wedding day. As much as Joan championed my legal career, now she was rooting for me to give up the often grueling work of the courtroom and move here to Mougins permanently to be with Luc.
When I’d boarded the flight to Nice the night before last, I was entirely in sync with Joan’s plan. But at this very moment, I thought Nina was right. I was in love with a man I hardly knew. The aspects of the long-distance romance that made it so exciting and titillating were also the very things that made it impossible to get inside each other’s daily life and routine.
I looked at my watch. It was two-thirty on a Sunday afternoon, and eight-thirty in the morning at home. I felt a tinge of regret about agreeing to stay off my BlackBerry during this trip. Mike and Mercer came from backgrounds as different from mine as one could imagine, but we had the same respect for the criminal justice system and the same value for the dignity of human life. Both of them had helped train me—every bit as much as the lawyers from whom I’d learned—in the art of investigating cases, in the search for the truth that characterized the way a great prosecutor’s office worked. Mike’s call—and Luc’s response—had unsettled me.
I rolled on my side away from Luc and covered my shoulders with a yellow-and-white-striped beach towel. I wondered whether Lisette’s body had been removed from the edge of the pond yet, and if there were any forensic experts in this area who would assist in the death investigation.
The anxiety gnawed at me until I pushed this morning’s images out of my mind, and I fell asleep again. I didn’t awaken until Luc kissed me on the top of my head.
“It’s almost four o’clock. Another swim and we go?”
I stretched my arms up in the air to reach Luc’s face. “It’s warmer in the pool. At the speed you drive that thing, I’ll form icicles on the way up to Mougins if I get wet here.”
“Off we go, then. I’ve got all those hungry mouths to feed.”
The sun was already dropping lower in the sky as I pulled on my sweater and slacks and gathered my belongings. “Do you have a lot of reservations for tonight?”
“Completely full. And you know how happy that makes me. There’s a private party in the back of the main room,” Luc said. He had created one of the most beautiful dining spaces in France, which complemented the exquisite food and premium service. “We’ll turn each of the tables in front over twice. And you and I are dining in le zinc.”
“Perfect.” Le zinc was the bar attached to the restaurant. The elegance of the dining room with its crisp white linens, shining Christofle silver, crystal wineglasses, and the soft spring green of the painted trim was a sharp contrast to the turn-of-the-century feel in the much cozier adjacent room. It was intimate in the most casual way, a long wooden counter that Andre Rouget had rescued from a Parisian bistro and transported to the restaurant, across from a row of tables that sat beneath nineteenth-century posters warning of the dangers of l’absinthe or glamorizing the nightclubs and brothels of the day.
The maître d’ appeared in our path as we headed for the staircase. There was rarely a bill for Luc when we dined at a friend’s restaurant. Professional courtesy would come in the way of payback for the owner and management of L’Ondine when they wanted an evening in the country. Luc folded a tip into his extended hand and we thanked the maître d’ for the delicious afternoon.
“We’re not alone tonight, did I tell you that?” he said, as we climbed the steps back up to La Croisette.
“You mean, apart from Captain Belgarde?”
“That will put a damper on the evening,” he said, catching up to me at the top and taking my hand as we crossed the broad boulevard. “Yes, one of the guys who’s going to supply the wines for New York is visiting here. I had no choice but to invite him to join us.”
“That should be lovely.”
“We have so few nights together that I hate to fill them with business.”
“For me it’s great fun. I get to learn so much about what you do. Do you like him?”
“He seems like a decent guy. And he certainly knows his business.”
We dodged the steady parade of cars and motorcycles and tiny Vespas that coursed through the thoroughfare with little concern about speed limits.
When we reached the motorcycle, Luc removed our headgear from the saddlebags and I stuffed my tote inside. I fastened my hair into a ponytail at the nape of my neck, strapped on the shiny blue helmet, and climbed onto the backseat. At this moment I didn’t bear any resemblance to the serious prosecutor who made it a point to appear like a complete professional in the office and courtroom.
Luc looked at his iPhone before he pocketed it. “Brigitte e-mailed me when you were napping. Belgarde’s already called to ask her about the dead girl,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s going to drive to her mother’s tonight and stay till all this blows over in town.”
“So I guess she’s taking the kids?”
“Yes,” he said, getting into place on the bike.
I was talking to his back. “And you want to see them before she goes?”
“I’d like to.”
“I don’t blame you, Luc. Just drop me at the house and I’ll meet you at the restaurant whenever you like.”
He reached back with one hand and stroked my thigh. “Thanks, darling.”
“You worry about the silliest things. I’m pleased you want to see them. They don’t need to have this murder case churning around them, just because you and Brigitte knew the victim.”
I was well aware that figuring out how to maintain his intimacy with his children was a major stumbling block to Luc’s plans for a second restaurant in New York.
The narrow side streets of Cannes were packed tight with parked cars and commercial vans. I nestled into my usual position against Luc’s back and swayed with him as he maneuvered the territory he knew so well. The first few blocks were almost on flat ground, filled with shops selling all the luxury goods for which the French were known. But then the streets began to merge together, more modest businesses and residences side by side, as we climbed out of the busy city headed due north on the Boulevard Carnot.
I was daydreaming with my eyes closed once we left the dramatic scenery of the old harbor and grand buildings. The highway was a drab road, with strip malls built up on either side. Traffic was already intense, and Luc began to weave among the cars that started and stopped at each intersection and traffic light. He was an impatient driver, and I was used to the rhythm he set as he picked up speed to charge the great concrete hill.
The bike dipped sharply to the left and seemed to kick into a higher gear. My head snapped back, bringing me out of my reverie as I tightened my grip around Luc’s waist.
“Easy!” I screamed out to him, but the word was lost between the noises of the engines and car horns all around us.
Luc was on a tear, passing three cars on the right as he gunned the powerful Ducati to surge forward. I grabbed at his lean frame to find some skin to pinch to express my discomfort, and when I did he simply shook me off and continued at the same breakneck speed.
It must have been the day’s events that were getting to Luc, and maybe Brigitte’s sudden decision
to leave town with the two kids, pressuring him when he least needed another concern. I twisted my head around to the left to check where we were and whether there was any reason—other than his nerves—for this erratic driving pattern.
I could see that he had skirted a bad collision a hundred yards back, a four-car pileup that would have everything backed up until it was cleared.
Luc was trying to say something to me now, but it was impossible to hear him. I leaned in against him and could figure only that he was trying to tell me to hang on. When I turned to the right and looked back, I could see why: two men on motorcycles, both in leather jackets with upturned collars, wearing polarized sunglasses beneath large black helmets, seemed to be in serious pursuit of us. They were also off to the right on the shoulder of the paved road, following in the very path Luc had carved out for himself.
There was nothing for me to do but flatten myself against Luc’s back. His shirt was flapping against the skin on my cheek, whipped up by the wind and the velocity. At home, in the city, a ride like this would have been virtually impossible without a police car intervening in a matter of minutes. But speed wasn’t an issue in this part of the world.
I wanted to be off the motorcycle, and I wanted to be anywhere but clinging to the back of a man I thought I loved but barely knew. I shook off that thought and tried to be rational. What if these two guys weren’t chasing him? He was putting us both in danger, and I was getting dizzier from the combination of those ideas and the swinging motion of the bike as Luc steered it back between the two heaviest lanes of traffic.
The next three minutes on the highway seemed like an hour. Cars were honking at us now as we cut them off to keep up the pace, and the honking continued behind us as the men in black must have done the same.
I knew the exit was coming up in another quarter of a mile. Luc veered in front of two lanes of cars to go from the left-hand passing lane toward the ramp that would take us down to the route that led to the village. As he leaned to the right to make the exit, both bikers behind us followed suit. We were hugging the right side of the pavement so closely that I feared we would slam into the road sign announcing Mougins.
Night Watch Page 5
