A Vintage End

by D'arcy Kavanagh

  “What do you think about these actions targeting Bosco Yablonski, Madame Benoit?” he asked.

  “I think Monsieur Yablonski needs to take them seriously,” she said. “I think more than one person is involved and they are clever. I also think they are going to get much more serious.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Monsieur Yablonski has not yet been sufficiently embarrassed in the public eye and because no one has discovered his secret – if he has one.”

  “Have you tried to find anything about him, Madame?” Burke said.

  “I spent a few minutes last week looking into his background, but got nowhere beyond his business holdings and his desire for privacy,” the old woman said.

  Then she excused herself to return to the kitchen.

  Burke turned back to checking social media. A few minutes later he spotted a post with bad news: Someone heard another body was being pulled out of a canal. This body was just a few hundred metres from where the first body was discovered.

  He went into the kitchen and relayed the information to Madame Benoit who bowed her head for a moment.

  Then she looked up.

  “I wonder what those poor souls were doing to get trapped by the water in those canals,” she said.

  The same question had occurred to Burke.

  Chapter 20

  They talked no more about the two deaths. Or about Bosco Yablonski. Or about the vintage bicycle race coming up on Saturday.

  Instead, they discussed food, a favourite topic for Madame Benoit and, in Burke’s estimation, for every French resident.

  For dinner, Madame Benoit’s main course of légumes farcis, or stuffed vegetables, was simple but spectacular, and Burke was baffled by how she had gotten so much flavour into peppers, tomatoes, onions and eggplants. The various items for the stuffing included parmesan, bread crumbs, basil leaves, salt pork, rice and even anchovies, with healthy sprinkles of olive oil, but Burke figured there had to be something special involved in the preparation. Not surprisingly, Madame refused to divulge her secrets.

  After that feast, Madame brought out her pain d’epices, a French gingerbread with warm spices and a lovely hazelnut flavour for extra kick. She also produced the bottle of calvados and poured them each a small glass.

  After eating double portions of the gingerbread, Burke leaned back in his chair. He was pretty sure not even his friend Claude could match Madame Benoit’s culinary skills.

  “When you finish your calvados, we will check the news again,” Madame suggested, sipping from her own glass.

  Ten minutes later, they sat side by side staring at the computer screen.

  A third body had been found.

  “This has become a tragic day,” Madame said, crossing herself. “Not just for the ones who have died but for their families. I pray we will have no more deaths.”

  They saw a post on different social media from the Arles police urging people to be cautious and stay indoors. The police didn’t mention the deaths, but media outlets were confirming three people had been found dead.

  “Let’s try the TV,” Madame suggested.

  They went into the sitting room and the old woman turned on the television which, to Burke’s eye, seemed very new with a slightly curved screen. She then chose a news channel that told them pretty much what they had read, but they sat and watched nevertheless.

  With a seriousness that seemed almost theatrical to Burke, the announcer gave the basic information before turning the story over to an equally serious reporter at one of the scenes where first-responders were working in a tent, presumably on one of the bodies.

  The reporter had no details about the victim’s identity beyond being male and probably in his 20s. He said the victim had been found in the canal, not far from his bicycle. Police weren’t confirming a cause of death, but the reporter suggested the victim had likely been caught in the torrential downpour that had struck the region.

  “I’m not sure reporters are supposed to speculate like that,” Madame said.

  Nodding, Burke studied the screen but couldn’t see a bicycle nearby, just the tent and some people dressed head to toe in baby-blue plastic outfits.

  The story ended without more useful information, and the announcer proceeded into informing the audience about an upcoming proposal to introduce new labelling requirements for the wine-producing industry

  “Let’s go back to the computer,” Madame said. “I want to know more about those deaths.”

  Burke followed his landlady back to the computer where this time she took the main seat and control of the mouse. Moments later, she had them back on social media sites.

  “Look, someone has posted a photo of where that cyclist was found,” she said, pointing to the screen.

  She quickly had the photo, which had been taken by a passenger in a car, enlarged on the screen. The scene was different from the one on TV, and showed a body stretched out and partly covered by a tarpaulin. There were two police officers in the area with other emergency personnel approaching. The body was on the canal embankment.

  “It looks like that person was definitely riding a bike,” Madame Benoit said, pointing to a beaten-up, 10-speed bike lying nearby. “He must have fallen somehow and ended up in the canal. According to the story we heard before, he drowned. What a tragedy!”

  Burke stared at the photo, saying nothing. Something was wrong with the scene. Or, at least, with Madame’s – and the media’s – interpretation of what had happened.

  He wasn’t sure what it was, but he doubted this was an accident.

  Then he knew.

  “Can you enlarge the photo to get a closer look at the body and the bike, Madame?” he asked.

  A moment later, he had a magnified view of the scene. The view was slightly pixilated, but that didn’t matter to Burke.

  “What do you see, Monsieur Burke?” Madame asked.

  “Look at how tall the victim is,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Now look at the size of the bike and how low the saddle is. That bike is set up for someone several inches shorter.”

  “Maybe he stole it,” Madame suggested.

  That was a possibility.

  Burke studied the victim’s footwear.

  “Look at his running shoes,” Burke said. “I’m pretty sure they’re expensive. If that’s the case, why steal an old bike that doesn’t fit you?”

  “Maybe to get out of the rain,” said Madame Benoit who was frowning at the scene before them.

  Burke leaned closer to the screen. He pointed to the shoes again but this time jabbed at the shoelace on the victim’s right foot.

  “That shoelace is looped in a way that anyone riding that bike any distance at all would probably catch it on the bike’s chainring,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Those two rings of teeth in the front that carry the chain,” Burke explained. “If the loop of your shoelace is too big, it can easily catch on the teeth. If that happens, the loop in the shoelace might loosen a little but, most likely, it would stop the rider from pedaling and he would probably crash.”

  “Maybe that’s how he fell,” Madame suggested.

  “I don’t think so,” Burke said. “The loop on this person’s right shoe is the same size as the shoelace loop on the left shoe. That tells me he didn’t catch the loop of his right shoelace – that he wasn’t riding this bike at all.”

  “Which means someone arranged this,” Madame said studying Burke with piercing brown eyes.

  “There’s one more bit of proof that tells us this person wasn’t riding this bike,” Burke said.

  He pointed to the victim’s right pant leg.

  “See how it’s tucked into his sock? That’s to stop his pant leg getting caught in the chainring. If this person did that, he would likely re-tie his right shoelace into a much smaller bow, or double-knot it, to prevent it catching. He wouldn’t do one without doing the other.”

  Madame Benoit nodded.

  “They
probably seem like small things to a non-cyclist, but to me they’re huge,” Burke said.

  The old woman turned her gaze back to the screen.

  “So we’re not talking about an accident,” she said as she studied the monitor. “We’re talking murder.”

  “I think we are.”

  “I wonder if the police are looking at the scene the same way we are or, to be more accurate, the way you are, Paul,” Madame said, using his first name for the first time.

  “I’m wondering the same,” Burke answered.

  “However, it’s possible, even probable, they aren’t,” Madame suggested. “We’ve had many deaths during such storms in recent years and it would be easy for the police to believe this was just another unfortunate case of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “The part that’s confusing is if he wasn’t riding a bike, why put one there?” Burke said.

  Madame Benoit wagged a finger as if she had some solution.

  “It makes sense to use a bike,” she said. “If the victim was killed indoors and left there, it would appear to be murder as soon as the body was discovered. This way, the body of a supposed cyclist is found by a canal and it looks like another tragic accident caused by a terrible storm. And, as a result, maybe the police don’t go looking for a murderer, at least with much conviction.”

  She looked at Burke and wagged her finger again, this time adding a sly smile.

  “But whoever did this never expected an ex-professional cyclist to be examining the scene,” she said.

  Burke smiled at her compliment. Then his mind drifted to the scene of the dead rider.

  The more he considered it, the more he thought there was no way the victim took a spill despite the dreadful conditions, struck his head on a nearby rock, and tragically rolled down into the overflowing canal and drowned. While it might be possible, the undersized bike and the improperly tied shoelaces told him such a death wasn’t likely.

  The scene was a setup.

  Burke felt it in his bones.

  “I think we need more calvados,” interrupted Madame Benoit.

  “I agree,’ Burke said.

  Then he thought about what he and Madame could do even if they came up with a decent theory. He was just a blogger-columnist and she was an elderly chambre d’hôte owner. Would the police listen to them? And believe them?

  One step at a time, he told himself.

  “Yes, more calvados is definitely required, Madame,” he added.

  Chapter 21

  Burke and Madame Benoit spent the next half hour going through news websites for anything relating to the death of the second man, but found little they didn’t already know. They went back onto social media, but were equally stymied.

  In the background, they heard an updated news report on TV dealing with the flooding and the deaths of three people in the Arles region.

  Burke and Madame Benoit immediately shifted their attention and watched.

  A reporter was at the scene of the fatality involving the supposed bike rider. He struggled to make himself heard in the storm, but still managed to tell viewers that the scene was under investigation, but initial indications were the individual was in the wrong place at the wrong time, the victim of a sudden, deadly storm. He said the identity of the victim wasn’t known.

  The newscast switched to another reporter. This time, it was a woman at the scene of the second death. Behind the journalist were police and others dressed in yellow jackets, everyone looking miserable. The body was out of view, having just been loaded into an ambulance, the reporter said. Then she mentioned the victim was a widowed pensioner who lived 50 metres away. She added the man’s dog was also dead with police indicating the old man likely slipped into the canal trying to rescue his small dog.

  The announcer re-appeared on screen, discussing how police were saying a third man was found in a downtown park and was believed to be homeless. The suggestion from the announcer was the man had been drunk and had fallen unconscious into a puddle that ended up drowning him.

  Then the newscast switched to another story.

  Burke and Madame Benoit looked at each other.

  Madame took a sip from her healthy measure of calvados. Then she pointed a finger at Burke.

  “I think all three of these deaths were not accidents,” she said.

  She might be an elderly owner of a small chambre d’hôte, but Burke knew this woman should never be underestimated.

  He asked her why she thought none of the deaths were accidental.

  “If we accept that the cyclist wasn’t really riding that bike, then we accept he got there because someone killed him,” she began. “So, was it just pure coincidence that an old widower looking for his dog drowned not far from the cyclist? Something tells me it wasn’t.”

  “I agree,” Burke said. He was starting to feel like he was in a Sherlock Holmes-Doctor Watson scene with him in the role of the sidekick. Then he thought of a better comparison: She was like that old English spinster detective who outwitted everyone. He searched his memory for the name. Then it came: Miss Marple. And he was the tagalong cop feeding off her intelligence.

  “I’m a dog person,” Madame said, “and I have been most of my life although I haven’t yet replaced Sophie. I know that when it rains like this, no dog wants to go outside to play. And yet that’s what that reporter was saying, that the old man went out in this rain to get his dog who had run willingly into this storm.”

  Burke thought about Plato back home and how the little Jack Russell hated inclement weather. Whenever it was raining and either Burke or Hélène felt Plato needed a walk, the dog would hide at the first sight of his raincoat.

  “So, I don’t believe the old man was chasing after his dog,” Madame Benoit continued. “That makes me wonder what would get them outside or, to put it another way, who would get them outside.”

  “Good questions,” Burke said. “And what are your thoughts about the homeless man drowning in a downtown puddle?”

  Burke had no opinion about that death and wanted to hear Madame’s thinking.

  “Yes, the homeless man drowning,” she said. “That one strikes me as having the least chance of being accidental.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Our parks have many trees and most have small shelters where you can get out of the rain,” she said. “If the park is your refuge, you would naturally find someplace that isn’t becoming a lake.”

  “But maybe he was so drunk he couldn’t function at all,” Burke suggested although he didn’t believe it.

  “In a previous life, I had a husband who drank a great deal. Whenever he passed out, he was useless – but never so useless he couldn’t move an inch or two to avoid drowning or falling off a cliff, if you get my meaning.”

  Burke understood.

  “But it’s more than that,” she continued. “This storm is terrible and any human being will seek shelter in such conditions. If this homeless man was under a shelter, he wouldn’t find himself in a large enough puddle to drown because the puddles would be elsewhere. If he stayed under one of our trees, he probably still couldn’t drown in a puddle because the trunk of a mature tree slants outward which means the water won’t pool immediately underneath. If he was hiding under a tree, he wasn’t going to drown.”

  There was logic in what Madame Benoit was saying, Burke thought.

  “Finally, with the homeless man, I would like to see the photos of his body,” Madame Benoit said.

  “Why?” Burke said.

  “To see how he was positioned,” Madame replied. “A very drunk individual will usually fall sideways or sometimes even backwards. If he falls forward, he’ll somehow turn his head before hitting the ground. It’s instinctive. That means his head isn’t in a position to drown in a puddle. I know this from seeing my first husband.”

  “Which suggests someone held him down and drowned him,” Burke said.

  “And that brings up the question of why? And
who?”

  They sat silent for a minute.

  “You know, as a blogger for a newspaper, maybe I could get the police to give me some information that might prove interesting,” Burke finally said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Madame Benoit said and took a sip of her calvados.

  Chapter 22

  The police gave Burke nothing the next morning. At least the officer at the front counter at the Arles police station gave him nothing.

  “We have already released the information we have,” said the officer, a short, heavyset woman with blonde hair and startling blue eyes. When she stared at Burke, he felt like he should bow his head.

  But Burke wasn’t ready to give up. At the same time, he wasn’t prepared to engage in a debate with the officer.

  “I appreciate that, but I’m just looking for updates,” Burke said. “I need to file in the next while and I could use something that’s more up to date.”

  The woman shrugged and glanced at a pile of papers by her elbow. She was preparing to finish with him.

  Burke figured he had nothing to lose.

  “The reason I ask is because I believe there’s a possibility that the first person found, the cyclist, didn’t die in any accident but was murdered,” he said.

  The cop’s attention snapped back onto Burke.

  “Why do you say that?” she said in a low voice.

  “I saw a photo of the crime scene on social media and there are some signs there that don’t add up to an accident,” he replied.

  The officer stared at Burke. She was measuring him and Burke felt distinctly uncomfortable. He wondered if he had just gotten himself into trouble.

  But the innocent have nothing to fear, he told himself.

  Or so the argument went.

  “Wait here,” she told him.

  She went to another desk and picked up the phone, all the time watching Burke. She said a few words Burke couldn’t hear and then hung up.

  “Sit over there for a couple of minutes, Monsieur Burke,” she said, motioning to a bench in the corner. “Someone will be here shortly to talk to you.”