“Sounds like a conspiracy web,” Louise offered. “Did Jambert find the perpetrators?”
“Jambert felt almost certain he knew who was behind Burgundy’s rash of murders and missing person cases, and he was sure that Émile was one of the primary culprits. However, he also believed that Émile was only one of many involved in the crimes. Jambert kept meticulous notes and diaries concerning the cases, along with the evidence he collected over the years. In 1997 he prepared to present his findings during a new inquiry. But he never got the chance to reveal what he had worked so hard to prove. In August 1997, just several days before the start of the inquiries, someone found Jambert dead in the basement of his Auxerre home. An autopsy revealed that he had died from a single gunshot wound to the head. Investigators claimed that Jambert had a history of depression and the official cause of his death was suicide.”
“How frighteningly convenient.” Louise was getting that sense of dread.
Jules poured the remaining wine into their glasses. “That is why Inspecteur Ducard is a tortured man.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Before Jambert became a private investigator, he was Ducard’s partner on the police force.”
“Inspecteur Ducard was Jambert’s partner?”
Jules nodded yes. “This is why he spends his retirement drinking.”
“Will he be back here?” Louise asked, looking at the bar tab.
“Inspecteur Ducard? He’s here almost every evening. He usually reads before dinner.”
“What does he like to read?”
“Detective novels mostly,” Jules replied.
“Is he an honest detective?”
Jules took his cue. “As honest as the day is long.” Suddenly they were both at Rick’s Café Americain in Morocco, as Jules threw his hands up and then wiped a serving tray exactly like Carl the waiter, portrayed by Hungarian actor S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall.
“Bravo! Casablanca is my favorite movie!” Louise left enough cash to cover the bill plus a hefty tip. “Thank you, Jules. À très bientôt.”
“À votre service.”
T W E N T Y – S I X
January 9, 2002
The next morning, back at the vineyard, Louise rushed from the bathroom to answer her ringing mobile phone. “Allô!”
“Mademoiselle Baker?” The caller asked.
“Oui, c’est moi.”
“Bonjour. C’est Yves Renard du Crédit Agricole à l’appareil.”
“Ah, oui, bonjour!” Louise was a little thrown getting a call from the Crédit Agricole manager.
“Your loan documents are ready,” Renard continued in French. “Would you be able to come and sign them today?”
“I can be there in half an hour, okay?”
“Ça marche, À tout à l’heure.”
Louise hung up, grabbed a quick café in Magali’s kitchen and a half hour later was waiting in the lobby of the Crédit Agricole bank that catered to both humble farming community and wealthy viticulturists alike. It was a far cry from the gleaming BCCI Paris headquarters where she used to coddle affluent clientele. Renard impassively greeted Louise and escorted her to his office.
“I have also arranged for you to meet with the real estate agent today,” Renard said.
Louise was actually impressed. “That’s wonderful!”
Renard handed her documents to sign with the nonchalance of a bistro server giving her l’addition. The greedier the man, the blanker the expression, Louise thought. To Renard, she was just another gullible foreigner eager to part with perfectly good cash for a piece of the dream. “I’m a little nervous.”
“You have nothing to worry about. I’ve been doing this for thirty years,” Renard assured her.
“You’ve been with Crédit Agricole for thirty years?”
“I’ve been with Crédit Agricole for five years, but I have many prior years’ experience in banking.”
“Here in Burgundy?”
“No, I’m from Belgium.” Louise suppressed any reaction, her silence prompting him to try to impress her. “I was with the Chase bank in Belgium for ten years, then Banque Almasi.”
“Oh, that poor monsieur Almasi.”
Renard quipped, uncharacteristically, “Bankers never die; they just lose interest.” Louise hesitated, then laughed, despite the poor taste of the joke.
“Still using that old joke, Renard?” a statuesque blonde woman said from the doorway.
“Ah! Here she is.” Renard stood to greet her. “Mademoiselle Baker, this is Charlotte Perreaux. She will take you around to see some properties today.”
Charlotte had giant blue eyes and heart-shaped lips. “It is nice to meet you.” She shook Louise’s hand firmly while studying her closely. “It’s a funny coincidence. Something just came on the market, and I have a premonition you’ll love it.”
If this was a sales tactic, Louise was buying. Charlotte’s intensity made her credible and likable. “How soon can I see it?”
“I’ll make a call.” Charlotte took out her mobile phone and input the number. “We might be able to go there right now. I’ll meet you outside.” Charlotte waved to Renard and left.
“Thank you so much,” Louise told Renard. “Charlotte seems great.” She finished signing the documents.
“You’re quite welcome.” He took the documents. “Bonne journée.” They shook hands and Louise left.
Charlotte smiled as Louise came out to meet her. “The owner is home and will let us visit right now.”
“That’s great! Should I follow you?” Louise asked.
“I’ll drive.” They got into Charlotte’s Mercedes-Benz G-Class.
“I didn’t know Mercedes made this body type. I’ve never seen it in the U.S.” Louise had indeed been away from the States for too long.
“I believe it’s only available in Europe. It’s good to have four-wheel drive around here.” She sped off accelerating with ease.
“It feels like a very luxurious Jeep,” Louise said appreciating the ruggedness.
Charlotte agreed and touted its advantages. “It’s sometimes referred to as the Wolf. It was developed as a military vehicle for the Shah of Iran. I’ve heard there is a grey market for these in the U.S. with the basic model going for six figures. This one is much less, of course.” Charlotte merged onto route A6 south.
“Is the property very far?” Louise asked.
“It’s only about 20 kilometers south of here, right on the cusp of Burgundy.” As they continued, the landscape became more bucolic with pastures and orchards interspersed among the vineyards. “This house is very special because it’s literally right in the middle of a peach orchard.”
Louise grinned. “Would I have to become a peach farmer?”
Charlotte laughed. “No, you would not own the orchards. It’s a small parcel of land that happened to stay independent of the orchards. So, you get the best of both worlds.” Their chat made the drive go quickly and they were soon passing soft rolling hills.
“It’s beautiful. What river this that?”
“It’s the Saône River. This area is Côte Chalonnaise named after the town of Chalon-sur-Saône. Being on the river made the town an important trading center of the Celts in Gaul and later by the ancient Romans, with wine being one of the commodities traded along the river.” Louise had always been impressed with how well the French knew their history. It made up for how few could manage basic English. “More than twenty thousand Roman amphorae have been found in graves in this area.”
Now it was Louise’s turn to impress. “Are those the long narrow ceramic pots?” At the museum Matthieu had explained the amphorae were ideal for the transport and storage of olive oil and wine. The pointed base allowed it to stand upright when embedded in soft ground and also concentrated sediments from liquids.
“Bravo! You have been learning some of the local culture.” Charlotte began a convincing sales pitch. “There’s so much history here. In the 1980s, this region began producing higher
-quality wine and experienced a renaissance. As the price of Burgundy wine increased, the Côte Chalonnaise developed a reputation for consistent quality at a lower price than some of the better-known villages of Burgundy. It led to a sharp increase in the price of wines, which brought an influx of investment to this area.”
They passed rows of mature peach groves, still bare from the winter. Charlotte turned onto a gravel road that was a long driveway ending at a charming stone cottage. “This house was built in the 1600s. You’re so fortunate that it just happened to go on the market. I’ve known this house all my life and absolutely adore it.”
“Don’t you want to buy it?” Louise asked.
“Believe me, I would. But I must be practical. My young daughter is in school, and my husband works in Dijon.”
They walked up to the garden with a long narrow stone swimming pool at the end of which water trickled from a scallop shell. Steam rose invitingly from the crystal-clear lagoon.
“I feel like a swim!” Louise said.
Suddenly an older gentleman was upon them. “The scent of peach blossoms, lavender, and herbs is wonderful in spring,” the man spoke with an Italian accent. He pointed up. “These two ancient cork trees provide shade in the summer.”
“Ciao, bello!” Charlotte said, exchanging many cheek kisses. “Giorgio, this is Karen. She’s looking for a summer home, so of course I had to show her your place.”
Giorgio had a soft manner. His silver hair and slight stubble gave him an aging-movie-star elegance. He wiped his hands on a rag. “It is nice to meet you, Karen.” They exchanged four cheek kisses. “Please come in. I apologize for my appearance. I’m trying out a new pigment on the sitting room walls.” They walked into the cottage with centuries-old stone floors, worn antique furniture covered with vintage textiles, and picture frames without pictures.
“Giorgio and his wife Irène have been restoring this house for over ten years,” Charlotte said.
“It hadn’t been occupied in eighty years when we bought it,” Giorgio added.
“Giorgio is a genius at using the resources at hand. He painted the rooms with local pigments.”
“Yellow, ocher, red, green.” Giorgio walked them through. “I even painted some of the lampshades, lest they look too bare.”
“It’s perfect,” Louise said. “What a treasure.”
“We were living in Paris when I saw a listing in the paper that said, Ruin for Sale.” Giorgio laughed. “Irène thought I had lost my mind.”
“You’ve done an incredible job restoring it,” Louise said.
“It is a never-ending project. We believe that a house should never be finished. When the house is finished, you die.”
“May I ask why you are parting with it?” Louise inquired.
“We are moving back to Paris,” Giorgio said. “It is too much work for us now. Can I offer you some lunch?”
“Well…” How could she refuse? It seemed everyone in Burgundy either knew history or cuisine, probably both. Before Louise could answer, Giorgio began plating sliced fresh mozzarella di bufala and homegrown tomatoes. He walked over and brushed his hand across a bushy basil plant by the door, pinching off a few white flowers that were trying to sprout and discarding them outside. He snipped a stem and plucked off a few leaves that he stacked, rolled, sliced into a chiffonade. He drizzled balsamic vinegar and fresh olive oil, then a pinch of fleur de sel and cracked pepper, and sprinkled the chiffonade over all. Giorgio placed the beautiful ceramic platter in the center of the large wooden farm table, alongside a bowl of crusty sliced baguette. He quickly set the table with mismatched flowery plates and utensils.
“Asseyez-vous,” he said, indicating the chairs.
Louise sat, taking in the beautiful presentation, simple, fresh, and magnificent. “It looks delicious.”
Giorgio served them red wine poured over ice in cobalt tumblers. “Tchin tchin,” he said, raising his glass.
Louise had gone to the bank under the pretext of buying a vacation home for her investigation. But now she was seriously wondering if this house was in her stars.
“Is the house on the market yet?” Louise asked.
“We’re still deciding,” Giorgio said. “But I wanted to let Charlotte know we were thinking about it.”
“Well, if you decide to sell, could you call me first?”
“Of course,” Charlotte replied. “Karen is a referral to me by Yves Renard at Crédit Agricole,” she informed Giorgio.
“Renard in French means fox,” Giorgio said. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
Charlotte winked at Louise. “For all of Renard’s faults, he sent us Karen.”
“Cheers to that.” Giorgio got up and refilled their glasses. “Just watch your derrière, Karen.” To which Charlotte giggled.
“Why?” Louise asked. Charlotte and Giorgio both rolled their eyes. Giorgio made the universal sign of putting a key between his lips, turning it, and throwing it away.
“He is, how you say, a bit louche,” Charlotte said.
“Shady, sournois, like a rat,” Giorgio said. “Un petit mesquin.”
“He’s a dirty old man,” Charlotte concluded.
“Pervert,” Giorgio said. They laughed but Charlotte picked up on Louise’s concern.
“Just keep him at arm’s length,” Charlotte advised. “You may have noticed I don’t give him the bisous.”
“Yes, keep far away,” Giorgio said.
They switched to a more pleasant conversation and after lunch, they bid Giorgio farewell. Charlotte dropped Louise off at her car and she headed straight home.
Trying to avoid Matthieu, Louise darted into her cottage. That evening she planned to stake out Inspector Ducard and needed to do more research. She turned on her computer and sifted through articles on Usenet, cutting and pasting data to a proliferating Word document. Most of the leads into serial killings fizzled out, except for one article about Joanna’s parents who had looked into the French investigation of a truck driver, Thierry Villetard, in prison for sex crimes. He had lived near the school in Auxerre where Jo taught. But there was not much else about him on the Internet.
Louise freshened up, wet down her hair and parted it on the side creating a retro look. She put on the Myrna Loy pencil dress in burgundy crepe rayon – burgundy in Burgundy – with a notched neckline and small rounded collar, dark hose, and her Mary Janes.
She drove to the pub in Pommard, hoping to arrive before Inspector Ducard.
T W E N T Y – S E V E N
January 9, 2002
“Mademoiselle Karen!” Jules greeted her.
She sat in her usual spot at the bar. “I had a craving.”
“Assiette de fromages?”
“You read my mind.” He went to fetch the cheese plate leaving her lost in thought. There was a definite pattern with the serial killings. Also, the former Monte Carlo Chief Superintendent of the Urban Police Division, M. Patrick Roblot, believed there were connections to the banking world, perhaps some kind of dark network involved in thwarting the police.
Jules returned with a plate of local cheeses and fresh sliced baguette. “Voilà!” He presented it to her, pointing to each cheese as if he were in a Michelin-starred restaurant. “Start with the king of cheeses, Epoisses. It is excellent with this white Burgundy from Côte de Beaune.” He showed her the bottle then poured her a glass.
“White burgundy sounds like an oxymoron.”
“The diamond among rubies,” Jules said.
Louise spread the semi-soft cow’s milk cheese on the bread, bit down into the creamy crusty delight, and sipped the wine.
“Exquisite.”
Jules pointed to the next cheese. “Try this Bouton de Culotte goat cheese with your oxymoron.” He pointed to the last cheese. “But wait for your next glass of wine to try this Morbier. It goes great with a pinot noir.”
Louise spread the goat cheese on the bread and bit into it. “Sublime.”
Jules rushed off to serve some new arriv
als, leaving Louise gorging on cheese, bread, and wine, comforted by the earthy flavors. She made a mental note to add this to the menu of Magali’s dream Café.
Jules returned and quipped, “Les émotions, ça creuse.” The French expression literally means emotions hollow out the stomach, making you hungry.
Louise gave him a look of guilty pleasure. “True. Let’s just say I’ve had an eventful day.” She took another satisfying bite and finished the white wine.
Jules poured a glass of pinot noir. “For the Morbier.”
She cut into the cheese and ate a chunk, sans bread, chasing it with the red wine. “Heaven.”
“Fit for an angel,” Jules said.
Louise laughed. “Bartenders are gods among men.”
“Bartenders are gods?”
“Think about it,” Louise expounded. “Maybe God isn’t omnipotent. Maybe he’s just been around so long, he knows everything.”
“Un Jour Sans Fin!”
“Bravo!” Louise might have known she couldn’t put one over on Jules. He caught the film quote from Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. She craved some more information about him. His boyish good looks made him both disarming and approachable. “Are you married?”
“Yes, I have a lovely wife and a beautiful daughter,” he confessed.
“Lucky women,” Louise said.
Jules looked at his watch, and, like clockwork, Inspector Ducard entered. He acknowledged no one and walked directly to his usual seat at the end of the bar. He cracked open his book and read intently. As expected, a glass of wine appeared in his line of vision. Unexpectedly, a book slid into his view. It was The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, but the French version, Le Faucon De Malte. The haunting eyes of the femme fatale on the cover glared up at him.
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