Murder in the Rue Dumas : A Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery (9781101603185)

by Longworth, M. l.

  “We did get the impression that not many of the theologians actually get along,” he answered. “At least those who spoke up during the meeting.”

  Mme Bonnet made no acknowledgment of the judge’s hint and continued. “That was Georges Moutte’s fault.” Both men leaned forward, interested. “Moutte played cat and mouse with his professors. He left me alone—I think that he was a little afraid of me.” She smiled openly at the thought of it. “Both Drs. Leonetti and Rodier are under a fair amount of stress right now,” she added, wanting to give the policemen a better impression of her department. “Georges was going to retire at the end of the school year, and Annie and Bernard were up for the post. But Georges would play the other professors off of each other, promising one a full professorship and then giving it to someone else. He even did the same thing with the graduate students, dangling the Dumas prize in front of their noses, hinting at who would win, that sort of thing.”

  “Was the Dumas that big of a deal?” Paulik asked. What he really wanted to add was that someone would kill for it? Mme Bonnet looked at Paulik and then at Verlaque, her eyebrows raised.

  “Have you heard of the Prix de Rome?”

  Verlaque nodded but it was Paulik who replied, “The prize given to artists and architects to study in Rome?”

  “Yes. Well, the Dumas was almost that prestigious. A cash prize of fifty thousand euros to enable a scholar to study; a furnished apartment here in Aix, just downstairs from the doyen’s apartment; travel expenses paid in case your research takes you to Jerusalem or to Dublin; and something on your résumé that’s invaluable.”

  “And will no doubt lead to future employment,” Verlaque added.

  “Almost certainly.”

  “And the fellowship has been in existence since when?” Verlaque asked.

  “Since 1928, when Father Jules Dumas left the family fortune to us.”

  “Could you explain to me how a French university was allowed to keep a Theology Department going after 1905?” Verlaque asked.

  Mme Bonnet peered at the judge and thought twice before answering, not because she didn’t know the answer but because he hadn’t said please.

  “In 1905, as you know, a separation of church and state was declared. The university Theology Departments across France were closed, save in Alsace because it was German at that time, and this small department in Aix, thanks to one savvy Dr. Roland Dumas, uncle of Jules. Those wishing to study theology had to do so in a History, or even Law, Department. Fortunately the Dumas family was wealthy beyond belief, and even in 1905 money spoke loudly. The fact that one uncle was a cardinal and another a politician helped. The department was granted autonomy if they could prove to the state that they would be totally self-funded. The family had made enough money and wise investments that this was easy to affirm, and the scholarship has been granted yearly without a break since 1928, except during the occupation of the south of France from 1942 to ’45.”

  Verlaque asked, “And how long will it keep going on?”

  Florence Bonnet shifted in her seat. “Ah, with God’s will…many years to come…”

  Verlaque cut in. “So there remains quite a bit of money.”

  “Enough,” Mme Bonnet answered, clearing her throat.

  “You’re the treasurer of the Dumas Committee,” Paulik said, looking at his notes.

  “Yes. We’re having a meeting at the end of the week, as a matter of fact.”

  Verlaque knew that Florence Bonnet was hiding something, but he wanted to get her to continue talking of the murdered Georges Moutte.

  “You said that you hated the doyen,” Verlaque said.

  “Well…‘hate’ may have been too strong a word. He wasn’t good at his job and I think he knew it—so he used fear and false promises as weapons. I hated that part of him, yes. I didn’t value his scholarship either…he was a Cluny specialist but he rarely published, and when he went up to Cluny it seemed to me it was more for the Burgundian wine and food than for research. But I suppose I didn’t hate the man.”

  “He would have made enemies treating people like that,” Verlaque said. “But enough to be killed for it?”

  Mme Bonnet’s face became rigid at the word “killed,” smoothing out the many wrinkles of her extremely tanned face. Marine’s parents were great walkers, and unlike their daughter, they adored the sun.

  “Perhaps in a rage?” Mme Bonnet suggested. “You’re the policemen. Are people capable of such acts?”

  “In a rage, yes,” Paulik answered.

  “Well, Bernard Rodier was certainly in a huff at the party, but not in a rage,” she offered.

  “Tell us more about the party, Dr. Bonnet,” Paulik said.

  “I couldn’t hear what they were saying—Georges and Bernard, that is—the harp was ringing in my right ear. We all heard Georges yell at Bernard, ‘And my decision will be final!’ and then Bernard left, slamming the door. But we’ve all slammed doors on Georges Moutte, myself included. And then Georges made his announcement that he was not going to retire just yet, or anytime soon. This must be what he told Bernard, which is why, we all assumed, Bernard left the way he did. But you should ask Dr. Rodier himself.”

  “What time did you leave the party?” asked Verlaque. Mme Bonnet raised her eyebrows but did not question why she was being asked for an alibi.

  “Early, right after Bernard left. I was home by ten-thirty, and my husband—Marine’s father,” she said, as if wanting to remind the judge of his ties to the Bonnet family, “was waiting up for me. We drank some herbal tea, read for an hour or so, and then turned out the lights and slept until 8:00 a.m.”

  “Do you think it odd that Dr. Moutte would leave his apartment so late, after a party, and walk across town to his office?”

  Florence Bonnet crossed her arms and thought for a moment, looking down at her cream-colored skirt. “No, knowing Georges, it wasn’t that odd,” she answered. “He may not have been tired. Or maybe he wanted to get his mind off of the argument. Or, and possibly this is the best reason, he wanted to go to the office to work on his real passion, which you may have gathered is not theology.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Verlaque asked.

  “Didn’t you look around his office? Georges Moutte had one true passion, and with the arrival of the Internet—another useless American invention we’ve all become dependent on—I am told that Georges was becoming rather addicted.”

  “Antiques?” Verlaque guessed, remembering the Gallé vase and the seven-hundred-year-old object that killed the doyen.

  Florence Bonnet nodded up and down, tilting her head to one side and smiling shyly, as her daughter often did. “Art nouveau glass, to be specific.”

  “Do you have any idea, then, given his hobby, why Dr. Moutte would have postponed his retirement?”

  “A number of reasons came into my head the night of the party,” Mme Bonnet mused. “To anger Bernard Rodier and Annie Leonetti, for one. While Bernard drives me mad with his stupid questions, and Annie Leonetti is an Ivy-League show-off, they are both passionate historians and thinkers and deserved better treatment from the doyen. But I think the real reason is the money.”

  “Ah bon?” Verlaque asked. He couldn’t imagine that the doyen’s civil servant salary was that high.

  “Yes, the doyen is generously paid, thanks to the endowment,” she answered, as if reading the judge’s mind. “And whoever the doyen is, they live rent free, in what is, if you haven’t seen it already, a fabulous apartment. The apartment alone would be worth murder, in my opinion.”

  Paulik shifted in his chair and cleared his throat.

  “Do you know who the doyen dealt with when buying antiques?”

  Mme Bonnet laughed, and Verlaque immediately remembered Marine’s descriptions of her parents’ 1960s home, devoid of charm not because of its era but because neither of her parents had any flair for decorating or how to make a home warm.

  “No, I’ve no idea,” she replied.

  “And Dr. Mo
utte was a bachelor with no family,” Verlaque stated, wanting confirmation from Mme Bonnet, who seemed to know, or be willing to reveal, a great deal.

  “That’s right. He had an older brother, also never married, who died two years ago of cancer.”

  Paulik crossed his thick legs and put down his pencil. “We were told by Dr. Moutte’s secretary that there is an Italian also in the running for the doyen’s job.”

  “Ah,” Mme Bonnet said, laughing. “How Giuseppe Rocchia ever earned a doctorate, I’ll never know. But yes, he was also a candidate for the post. I’m not sure why Georges chose Rocchia, possibly to anger the other two, or possibly because of their shared hobby.”

  Paulik looked at Verlaque and then back at Mme Bonnet. “Rocchia collects antiques too?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Mme Bonnet answered. “Glass as well, but more than early twentieth-century French. Anything from Roman to contemporary American, so I’ve heard.”

  “Did either of them collect wood?” Verlaque asked. Mme Bonnet looked puzzled by the question.

  “No, no. Only glass as far as I know, although I’ve never been invited to any of Giuseppe’s many houses.”

  Verlaque thanked Mme Bonnet, who then stood up, straightened her skirt, and picked up her all-purpose mesh carrier bag, full of books and papers and what appeared to be a sandwich wrapped in plastic.

  “You’ve been most helpful, Dr. Bonnet,” Verlaque said. This was the longest he had ever spoken to either of Marine’s parents, and while he didn’t really like Mme Bonnet, he appreciated her straightforwardness, and he now knew where Marine’s strict work ethic came from.

  “You are welcome,” she answered. She stopped at the door and said, “I hope I wasn’t too harsh on poor old Georges. While I didn’t think he was the best person to be the doyen, he certainly didn’t deserve to die, or be murdered, as you seem to think he was.”

  “We know he was murdered, Dr. Bonnet,” Paulik said.

  “Well, well, now,” she answered, shaking her head and bringing the carrier bag up to her chest. Paulik got up and opened the door for her and she walked out into the hallway and then paused and stopped, as if she wasn’t sure where to go next.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A Really Humble Guy

  “Your mother-in-law is quite a character.”

  Verlaque looked over his reading glasses at his commissioner and laughed. “Are you teasing me?”

  “Yeah, just a bit. Sorry, sir. Dr. Bonnet reminds me of one of my cousins, who runs the post office in Lourmarin and terrifies all of the other workers and villagers. She tells it like it is, which some of our family members appreciate and others don’t. Hélène thinks she’s a hoot.”

  “I get what you mean. Mme Bonnet was a good source of information. She has some strong opinions, which we’ll have to sift through. But the antiques-collecting angle is interesting, don’t you think? Collectors will do anything to add to their collections. Do you remember that attempted murder in Bordeaux a few years ago?”

  “Yeah, I’d kill for some old Burgundies, but not for Bordeaux wines.”

  Verlaque laughed. “I agree. That reminds me, I think that guy is being released in a couple of months.”

  Paulik nodded and then said, “But a thief who knew about art would have taken the vase from the office. Unless there was something in the office even more valuable than art nouveau glass. Like a seven-hundred-year-old wooden sculpture?”

  “Let’s try to find out Moutte’s most recent purchases. And if there have been any thefts or sales of wooden medieval statues recently, especially in France.”

  Paulik crossed his arms and said, “The real motive, it seems to me, is still that job, and the apartment.” Verlaque looked at his commissioner but didn’t reply.

  “I know that we still have to speak to the rest of the party guests, but I think that the primary suspects are those three professors who stood to get…and still do, now that Moutte is dead…the job,” Paulik continued. “Imagine you have been promised that you’ll be the next doyen, and then Moutte announces at a party that he won’t be retiring just yet? That would explain why the murderer didn’t take any art from the office. What they wanted was that apartment and tenure. What’s an apartment of that size and history worth in Aix? A couple of million. Okay, they can’t sell it, as it belongs to the school, but they’re still living in it. And the post is for life.”

  Verlaque thought of his commissioner’s suggestion and knew that it had some validity: his brother Sébastien was a realtor in Paris and had, at their last dinner together, entertained Verlaque with stories of wars between families—husbands and wives, siblings, nieces and nephews—over the inheritance of such apartments.

  “All right,” Verlaque said. “But what about the wooden object? What was it? And where is it now?”

  “It was just the murder weapon. It’s probably in the sea by now. Okay, it’s a fancy murder weapon, which happened to be in the right place at the right time. It could have been a recent purchase and so that’s why the secretary didn’t know about it. Or the murderer may have brought it with him, but that’s pretty far-fetched.”

  Verlaque nodded in thought and was about to reply when a knock was heard and Officer Cazal opened the door.

  “Ready for the next interview?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Verlaque replied.

  A tall, ill-dressed girl in her early twenties stood in the doorway as if frozen. Officer Cazal gently put her hand on the girl’s shoulder and nudged her into the small office.

  “This is Garrigue Druon,” the officer announced. She smiled at the girl and said, “This is Judge Verlaque and Commissioner Paulik. They’re speaking to everyone who was at the party on Friday night. After you’ve answered their questions you’re free to go. Okay?”

  The girl quickly nodded, and not looking at the judge or the commissioner, sat down, staring at her long, thin, pale hands.

  “Garrigue?” Verlaque asked. The evergreen low-lying shrubs that covered Provence’s limestone hills—among them lavender, rosemary, and thyme—were collectively called garrigue. Verlaque knew that the sweet-smelling honeysuckle and Scotch broom also made up the garrigue, as did juniper bushes and olive trees. He imagined that Bruno Paulik would be able to list all of the other garrigue plants, ones that Verlaque may only know by sight, if that.

  “My parents were hippies,” the girl whispered, used to explaining her name.

  “It’s a lovely name,” Verlaque said, trying to get the girl to look up at him. When she did, he recognized her. “You were outside of the school yesterday, weren’t you? With another girl?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, looking up at Verlaque and then over at Paulik. “That man…in the wheelchair,” she continued. “He’s nasty, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, don’t go near him,” Verlaque answered. “Did he bother you?”

  “Not really,” she whispered. “But I was glad you came when you did.”

  “So you were at this infamous party on Friday night,” Paulik said, wanting to change the subject away from Lémoine.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know Professor Moutte well?”

  “Oh no,” she answered, surprised by the question. “He was the doyen. That was the first time I had been invited to his apartment, and only because I was nominated for the Dumas.”

  “Well done on that,” Verlaque said, wanting to make the girl feel more at ease. She continued to play with the frills on her cheap flowered blouse, but did manage to look the judge in the eyes and smile slightly.

  “Who else was up for the Dumas?” he asked.

  “Four of us. Myself, Thierry Marchive, Yann Falquerho, and Claude Ossart. Claude wasn’t at the party. He seldom leaves the library.”

  “And the other graduate students don’t have keys to the building, right?” Paulik asked.

  “No, only those of us who are teaching assistants. That’s myself and Claude.”

  “You’re Dr. Leonetti’s assistant?” Ver
laque asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Who, or what, are you researching?” Verlaque asked.

  She sat up, her voice now clear and happy. “I’m researching Saint Ambrose, Augustine’s teacher.” Verlaque smiled, now out of depth in his knowledge but wanting the girl to feel at ease. It was Paulik who continued the conversation by saying, “I had a great-uncle Ambrose. He too was a priest.”

  Garrigue Druon looked at the commissioner and smiled.

  Paulik continued, “My uncle was always telling us stories about Saint Ambrose and about his life in Milan. What I remember most was that Ambrose was a saint of the people, a really humble guy, where Augustine was the scholar.”

  “Exactly,” Garrigue replied, leaning forward. “Ambrose baptized Saint Augustine, but was known more for his passionate sermons, whereas Augustine is still widely read for his letters and confessions.”

  “My great-uncle kept bees, too, just like Saint Ambrose!” Paulik added, now sitting forward, almost cutting the girl off.

  “Really?” Garrigue exclaimed. “Saint Ambrose is the patron saint of beekeepers!”

  Verlaque glanced, slightly annoyed, at his commissioner, who was now leaning back in his chair, as if remembering this great-uncle. It then briefly crossed Verlaque’s mind that Paulik may have invented the story to make Mlle Druon more comfortable, but he was never sure with Bruno Paulik, who seemed to know half of Aix and almost all of the Luberon.

  “What time did you leave the party, Garrigue?” Verlaque asked.

  “Latish,” she answered quietly, now remembering why she was here. “I felt out of place, but for some reason felt too shy to leave.” Verlaque pictured the girl leaning awkwardly against a wall, alone. “Wallflower,” he thought the expression was in English. Garrigue went on, “I helped Dr. Leonetti gather up some of the dishes and then left just before midnight.”

  “Did you notice anything strange that evening, apart from the argument between Dr. Rodier and the doyen?”

  The young student thought for a moment and then said, “No, not really, except that Dr. Moutte received a phone call really late, just before I left.”