Bordeaux: The Bitter Finish

by Janet Hubbard

  The machines stopped abruptly. The workers were probably changing shifts, as it seemed this was a twenty-four-hour operation. Max heard a tap-tapping across the wooden floor. She heard a door open and slam. Paula Goodwin was free.

  Just then, Max felt something pressed against her thigh. It was the pocketknife that she had stuck back in her pocket. “Hey kid,” she whispered, “Hank and Juliette can’t survive another loss. Help me out here.” She gripped the knife tightly as her mind drifted off into darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  April 9

  Olivier sat in Max’s kitchen checking emails, waiting for her to show up. Abdel had news: François Laussac was pressing charges against Pascal Boulin for assaulting him. Yannick Martin was out on bail, the 10,000 euros paid by Laussac, presumably. Abdel and his team had found new corks and a large number of old vintage bottles in the cellar of Vincent’s office, but no equipment for making labels. Vincent had been trailed to a bank in Switzerland, where he had removed a large sum of cash, and wired another large sum to a bank in Australia, which they intercepted. Since his return he hadn’t left his house, but his father came by to say good-bye, and Yannick had stopped in twice. Abdel assured Olivier that Vincent was under guard. Pascal remained in jail, and Olivier typed a response to Abdel that he could be released. The concierge, Monsieur Cazaneuve, had resigned from the hotel, and Abdel asked Olivier if he should interrogate him at his apartment. Olivier was about to sign off when Abdel wrote, “You were right about Douvier exploiting me. I wish I had listened to you.”

  “D’accord.” Olivier tried Max again, then called Anson Richards, whose secretary explained that Mr. Richards was indisposed. Olivier asked her if a woman named Max Maguire had met with him. “You mean a tall, blond, girl, all in black?” That was the one.

  She said Max had been gone for a while now. He stayed on hold while the secretary tried to find her boss to see if he knew where Max was headed. She said she’d have to call him back. At least he knew Max had been there. He took a moment to look up the word ‘indisposed’ on his laptop. Ill, or disinclined or unwilling was the definition. He wondered which definition applied to Monsieur Richards.

  His phone rang and he picked up quickly. “It’s Walt. I’ve got some bad news. Max has disappeared from a wine warehouse in New Jersey. I’m on my way to get you.”

  “Disappeared?” He felt panic growing.

  “I’ll call her folks,” Walt said before ending the call.

  Olivier was ready when the unmarked car pulled up. Walt stuck his big hand out the window, and shook Olivier’s. “Hop in,” he said. “Her new partner Carlos called me and told me he was bringing in Wexler, but that Max was nowhere to be found and no amount of threats would get any answer out of Wexler.”

  “You must have ways of making this man talk.”

  “For sure.” Walt continued with the story. “She and Carlos met with a guy named Anson Richards, who sent them to Wexler’s Wines in Port Elizabeth.”

  “They didn’t stay together?”

  “Max was posing as a new wine store owner, and so had Carlos get into Wexler’s office and break into his computer. They were to meet in half an hour. What about you?”

  Olivier told Walt about exchanging bottles with Goodwin, then about the keychain. It was obvious from Walt’s expression that he was now taking every aspect of this case seriously.

  “We’ll bring her in on that basis,” he said. He radioed in for someone to pick up Goodwin, adding that he needed search warrants for Wexler’s warehouse and apartment. With nothing else to do, he said, “Don’t worry about the kid, she’s tough.” Olivier thought Walt was trying to reassure himself. Walt next barked an order on his cell to someone to find the taxi driver who had taken Max to the warehouse.

  Olivier was impressed with the detective he knew to be approaching retirement. He had already observed that Walt had the kind of demeanor that made people, whether colleague or criminal, unload their secrets. He wore a Smith & Wesson Model 10 on his hip. What Olivier found interesting was that it wasn’t an automatic, and that it had a four-inch barrel and a wood grip. He had noticed earlier a more compact five-shot revolver strapped to Walt’s ankle.

  “Max said you’re one of the most senior detectives in the precinct,” Olivier said, as Walt drove through the Lincoln Tunnel.

  “Forty years,” Walt said. “I’ll soon be sixty-one. When I started back in 1973 there were no female officers on patrol, no counterterrorism division, and few minorities. Now the minorities make up the majority of police officers. It’s a different world, with way too much paperwork, but I still love it. What about you?”

  “You could compare me to your state prosecutor. My position is constantly in jeopardy, especially with some of our ministers trying to abolish courts and the juges d’instruction.”

  “I never wanted to get into the political aspect of police work,” Walt said. “My father and my grandfather before him were cops, and that’s all I ever wanted.”

  “We thought uncovering the counterfeit operation could take weeks,” Olivier said. “And suddenly we have two strong American suspects.

  “I’ve found that when cases start to unravel it goes fast,” Walt said. “It takes diligence, and a stroke of luck. You being handed the key ring in France by the maid’s husband and then seeing it on Goodwin’s desk is what I mean by luck.”

  “The Champagne murders and now my Opération Merlot have taken me into a world of greed that has shocked me,” Olivier said. “Except for German officers resorting to violence during World War II, I don’t know of a case when wine has been associated with murder.”

  “The world’s gone crazy,” Walt said. He slowed the car down. “Here we are.” They entered a vast parking lot and followed signs to Wexler’s Importer and Distributor. Hank pulled up behind them, and got out of his car and walked briskly over, leaving Carlos behind on his phone.

  “You must have taken a helicopter here,” Walt said. Olivier thought the two detectives an incongruous twosome, Walt sartorially elegant in a suit and Hank in cowboy boots and leather jacket. Olivier stood back when Hank went into a diatribe about how he should have gone with Max, how headstrong she was, and what the hell was the point of being a cop if he couldn’t save his own kid. Olivier thought he was displaying a rare vulnerability.

  “You’re irrational about her,” he overheard Walt say. “Where she is right now has nothing to do with Frédéric.”

  “That’s enough.” Hank’s voice was steely.

  “If I don’t say something, nobody ever will. You can’t keep her safe, Hank. None of us can control fate.”

  “I can sure as hell try.”

  “If you don’t let her go, she’ll have to take off. She told me once that the only time she feels really free is when she’s in France, or in a Jiu-Jitsu fight.”

  “Let’s deal with the psychology stuff later,” Hank said.

  A car from the Port Authority police pulled up. Walt walked over and shook hands with the driver and talked with him for a few minutes. He came back to Hank and Olivier, and said they had to wait a couple of minutes. He explained to Olivier, “The Port Authority police are in charge of crimes connected to regional airports, train stations, and shipping. They handle thousands of ships carrying more than 32.8 million metric tons of cargo every year, including the wine you’re looking for. They have over 100 detectives trained for crimes occurring at transportation facilities. I could go on, but I think you get my point.”

  “Let’s stop the lesson and go in,” Hank said. “Show us where you saw her go in, Carlos.”

  Olivier felt like he was part of what he imagined an old-fashioned Western posse to be like as they entered the warehouse and followed signs to the office. A receptionist said that Mr. Wexler had left for the day. Walt pulled out his shield and said they were looking for a young woman who had met with Mr. Wexler around 4:30 th
is afternoon. She shook her head and said she had just come on for the night shift.

  “I guess we’ll have to conduct a search,” Walt said. Hank had already disappeared.

  “I’ll need to contact Mr. Wexler,” the secretary said.

  “You do that,” Walt said.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  April 9

  The solitude and darkness of the container, along with the fear that Max was trying to keep at bay, reminded her of a time when her parents took her brother and her to a country fair where they rode in a small car through a tunnel of horrors. Max was ten and her brother four, and while he had laughed, she had been frozen with terror as monsters with ghastly faces lunged out from the walls. She had experienced a much greater fear years later when her brother’s life had hung in the balance, and when his death was announced, she entered a world that was like the tunnel, where images of him crushed by a car tormented her for years.

  She had taken the cue from her parents to hide the grief that threatened to topple them over on a daily basis. Juliette had tried to get pregnant again, to no avail, and Hank had worked obsessively and become a hero. Max rebelled and started hanging out with the wrong crowd, but eventually got a degree from NYU in French literature and soon after applied to the police academy. It had been twelve years since Frédéric’s death, and she realized that she and her parents had never discussed it. Note to therapist, she said out loud: deal with brother’s death. Note #2: Tell Olivier you love him and don’t worry about his response.

  She had no idea how long she had lain in this box. She had heard a shot ring out, and a cry of pain. Several scenarios passed through her mind. The one she clung to was that Carlos shot Wexler, and by now Walt, Olivier, and Hank were on their way to her. What she feared, though, was that Wexler had a hidden gun and had shot Carlos, and he was lying on the floor nearby, dead. Paula and Wexler could be on a plane to Australia by now.

  Pain brought her back into her body. Her head hurt with a vengeance, and she couldn’t get warm. She lay there, and then remembered the wine that was her only company. She got up and found her way to the pallet, then dug out her penknife, and began to cut through more plastic. It took half an hour, but she pulled out a bottle, and stuck her knife down the side of the cork until it released. She turned the bottle up and took a sip. It was delicious. Ellen’s wine tasting instructions came to mind. “It’s a scintillating wine,” she said out loud, “with a hint of blueberries and yes, tobacco.” She had another sip, and another, imagining a headline in the New York Post announcing her death: Detective Dies with $5,000 Bottle of Wine Clutched in Hand. She eased back into the void.

  ***

  The Wexler warehouse was a beehive of activity at eight at night. Small trucks wove in and around the pallets of wine, and in and out of the vast warehouse. Olivier observed the rack-and-tier system, eights pallets high. Bottles were identified by numbers and letters. He could see Hank and Carlos far ahead, and he and Walt hurried to keep up.

  Through the exit was a shell of a building that appeared to be a new warehouse under construction. Hank peered in through the window but it was dark inside. The door was locked. Carlos explained how Wexler raced at him when he entered this space, and when he raised his arm, Carlos had no choice but to shoot.

  Walt said, “He hasn’t said anything?”

  “All’s he’s said is that a woman named Bailey Blue was in there buying for her new store, and by the time I showed up she had left.”

  “He didn’t have a gun, but went aggressive when you yelled NYPD,” Hank said. “Something had gone down.”

  Carlos said, “I kept my eye on Max until she told me to check out the office. She met up with a lady in the parking lot and talked to her.”

  “Describe her,” Walt said.

  He did. Olivier said, “Paula Goodwin. She drove out here?”

  “She’s in with Wexler,” Hank said. “The picture is clearer. Did you see Max leave?” he asked Carlos.

  “No. I waited for her, then looked all over, and when I didn’t see any sign of her I called Captain O’Shaughnessy.”

  “Max walked into a trap,” Hank said.

  “I’m calling the office,” Walt said. “Joe’s still there. He’ll get Wexler to talk.” He walked away from them to make his call.

  “Open this door,” Hank ordered Carlos, who took out a wire and began working it through the door handle. Olivier walked to the far corner of the building and peered around the corner. A wide door was raised and a flatbed truck was parked in the cavity of the building. Olivier beckoned to Walt and Hank, who followed him to the truck that was blaring hip-hop music. The driver was looking over a worker’s shoulder; the worker was busy readying the mechanism that would lower the container onto the flatbed.

  Hank and Walt approached the driver, holding up their shields. Olivier watched as the driver stared at the shield, then hopped up into the cab and turned down the music a half notch.

  “How come you’re the only truck in here?” Walt asked.

  The driver, his dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and sporting a scraggly beard, looked around and shrugged. “This building ain’t officially open yet. I have an order to pick up a container. That’s all I know.”

  It occurred to Olivier that all truckers shared the same responses, as though their ignorance of what they were delivering was part of their DNA.

  “Let me see your license,” Hank said. The driver dug it out of a beat-up wallet that he kept in his back pocket and glanced around at the men who were walking around the building as if they were searching for something.

  Displaying no nervousness, he said, “All’s I’m doing is taking an empty container back to the dock to be returned to Europe.” He paused, “What’s going on? Drugs or something?”

  “Something,” Walt said. The night manager, a short, nervous man, ran out from the office at the other end of the warehouse and demanded to know what was going on.

  “What time did you come on?” Walt asked.

  “Four.”

  “Did you see a tall young woman anywhere on the premises? Tall woman with short blonde hair?”

  “Only woman I saw was Ms. Goodwin.”

  “What time?”

  “Five-thirty, maybe. She was moving quickly down aisle three.”

  Walt turned back to the driver. “Give me your acquis papers.”

  The driver handed him a sheaf. “I’m taking it to the Mary Honeycut.”

  “I take it that’s a boat?”

  The driver nodded. He stood on one foot and then the other waiting for Walt to finish looking at the papers. “I gotta get movin, chief. This is a rush job.”

  Walt waved him on. The driver turned back to his truck and continued his preparations for loading the large container that was suspended four feet off the cement floor with ropes and cables. A worker held a control box. Swearing, the driver moved his truck beneath it. A song of loss and abandonment issued from the cab of the truck.

  Another sound cut through the lyrics, and Olivier looked around to see if there was nearby construction. “Stop!” he shouted to the driver, running up to the side of the container. The driver cupped his hand behind his ear as if to say he didn’t understand.

  Hank was taking impatient strides toward the truck now. “Turn the damn radio off!” Hank yelled.

  “What’s going on?” Walt asked Olivier.

  “I heard something like glass breaking,” Olivier said.

  They all froze in place in order to listen. “C’mon guys!” the driver complained. “You’re making me late.”

  Hank turned to the driver, “Open this thing up.”

  The driver started to protest, but seeing Hank’s face, obeyed. “I need to lower it first,” the driver said, and the worker hit buttons that brought it to ground level. “Now don’t go accusing me of nothing,” the driver said, soundi
ng defensive.

  The manager pulled the rope that lifted the door. Hank stepped inside, Walt behind him holding a flashlight. “See anything?” Walt hollered.

  “I got her!” Hank said.

  Olivier entered, and saw Max lying on a tarp with broken glass all around her. She appeared to be covered with blood. As Hank ripped off his jacket and placed it under her head, she said, “I think I drank too much.”

  Walt went into action, issuing loud, barking orders to police officers, some who showed up the minute they heard Max was missing on their radios. Walt called for an ambulance.

  Hank stood up, and Olivier heard him speaking in a soft voice into his cell phone. “She’s here. She’ll be okay. Now stop your crying, Juliette.” He quickly left the container and found a quieter place to finish his conversation.

  Olivier knelt down beside Max. Seeing her bruised cheek, and half-closed eye, he felt coldly vengeful toward Wexler. “You almost had a fermented body show up on your shore,” she said. “Glad you didn’t have to deal with that.”

  He picked up the broken wine bottle. “You chose a really fine wine to throw against the wall! You also won our bet that the killers were on American soil,” he said, switching to French, “We’ll dine at Veritas tomorrow night.”

  “I have a day to pull myself together then.” She sounded winded, and her eyes were closed.

  When the ambulance arrived, Olivier heard Hank say, “Mom will meet us at the hospital.”

  Walt marched to the unmarked police car, with Olivier behind him. “This would have been another murder on their hands if they’d been successful,” he said. “If you hadn’t heard that glass breaking, who knows what the outcome would have been.”

  Olivier didn’t want to think about it. “What will you do about Paula Goodwin?”