Murder on the Mediterranean (Capucine Culinary Mystery) (14 page)

Isabelle emitted her growling grunt.

“Calm down, Isabelle,” David said. “It’s another sailing term.”

Capucine suppressed a smile. “What else, Isabelle?”

“Momo’s not done. He found out some interesting things about your chum Angélique Berthier at Agence France-Presse. Tell her, Momo.”

“See, it turns out that their database can run linked names, in addition to single names. So it will list references to two or more people in the same article. Isabelle told me to run Berthier’s maiden name, Thévenot, and Tottinguer as a link. It produced eleven references.” He paused to make sure everyone understood.

“It takes a while to find the stuff, because the database doesn’t give you the page numbers, just the publication and date. It turned out that all eleven of the listings were from the same goddamn society pages with the postage stamp–size pictures. In most of the cases Berthier and Tottinguer were in pictures on the same page, but at different events. But in two pictures they’re sitting next to each other, in fancy duds, at charity dinners. They’re not smooching or anything, but you kind of get an impression that they’re more than just pals, if you know what I mean.”

“That
is
curious,” Capucine said. For a few seconds she drew imaginary circles on the table with her finger. “Isabelle, when you looked into her finances before, did you get the impression she was wealthy?”

“No, I told you. She makes a lot of money for someone in her early thirties, but she’s definitely not rich. This time I checked it all out. Right down to her brokerage accounts. Solid, but definitely not massive. She does straight buys of good, conservative stocks and hangs on to them. With one exception.”

Capucine’s eyebrows rose in query.

Isabelle scowled, as if she had been accused of doing something wrong.

“It was only one stock, and the trade wasn’t all that big. It was that missile and airplane conglomerate, EADS. You know, the one that defaulted on an airplane contract. She shorted some stock just before the announcement. I wouldn’t have thought she’d know how to execute a short trade. Anyway, it was no biggie. She made only a bit over fifty thousand euros on the deal.”

Capucine made more circles on the table. “You have the dates of all of this, right, Isabelle?”

“Obviously, Commissaire.” Isabelle tapped her notebook, which was lying on the table.

“Did the pictures in society pages continue after her marriage?”

Isabelle flipped through the pages of her notebook. “No, the last one was two years before she got married.”

Capucine nodded. “And the EADS trade?”

“A few months after the wedding.”

Capucine smiled thinly. “Isabelle, I need you to look into Dominique Berthier. But you have to be very discreet about it. Scour his finances. Check out his family. See if you can figure out a family tree that goes back a couple of generations. You should have no trouble getting that from the birth records.”

Isabelle nodded and scribbled in her notebook.

“In fact, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a very close look at the finances of all of them,” Capucine said.

“Sure. What else do you want us to do?” Isabelle asked.

“That’s it. You’ve already done too much. I can’t have you putting your careers at risk.”

“Look, Commissaire,” Isabelle said, “that’s why we came down here. We’re your team. You’re not going to get this solved without us, you know.”

“Don’t think I don’t appreciate it, but that just can’t happen. You both have to be back in the brigade bright and early Monday morning. Think about it. If you start doing legwork, you’re going to have to go on the stand at the perp’s trial, right?”

Momo nodded.

“That would mean that even with a conviction, you’d still face a serious problem with the IGPN not only for abetting a fugitive, which is what I’m going to be, but also for investigating a case without being ordered to. There’s no way they’d let that drop. You’d get kicked off the force and could even face criminal charges.”

“I don’t give a shit about that,” Momo said. “There’s more to life than police work.” The statement sounded proud but rang hollow.

“Momo’s right, Commissaire,” Isabelle said. “You can’t solve a case sitting in front of a screen in the hills of the Midi. You have to get out on the street.”

Capucine did not reply for several beats. Instead, she stared intently at Isabelle and Momo. “You both have done a lot. Way too much. You’ve already advanced the case a great deal. I’ll have it tied up in a few days, and things will get back to normal. Let’s all stop worrying the damn thing to death.”

There was a belligerent silence. Capucine, Momo, and Isabelle avoided each other’s gaze. The sawing of the cicadas grated.

“In any case, we can’t do anything until after tomorrow,” David said. “It’s the feast of Saint Veluton, the imaginary patron of the village. I get to make one of my beloved motivating speeches, and then the whole village shares a table of potluck dishes. I know for a fact Magali is determined to outdo herself.”

The next morning the village square was as packed as the Paris Metro at 6:00 p.m. The instant David’s speech was over and loudly cheered and he was absorbed into the melee, a determined phalanx of paysans appeared with trestle tables. They spread them about and covered them with tablecloths and the trappings for dinner. Finally, a platoon of village matrons marched in to place an earthenware cocotte at the center of each table. An expectant hush settled over the crowd.

“Monsieur Alexandre.” Magali had sidled up to Alexandre and drew him with some occult magnetic attraction to her table. She edged the lid of her cocotte to one side and inserted a spoon. “You’re going to have news for me,” she said with a flirtatious smile that transformed her back into a teenager.

The dish was a Toulouse cassoulet: white beans—known as
lingots Tarbais,
ingots from Tarbes—goose confit, salt pork, garlic sausage, and tiny white Toulouse sausages. A classic recipe, but to Capucine’s nose, in a class entirely of its own. Surreptitiously, Magali spooned out samples for Capucine and Alexandre. Alexandre exuded an orgasmic groan.

Capucine dropped to her knees. Alexandre assumed it was the vulgarity of his eructation.

“I’ve lost a contact lens!”

“You don’t wear contacts.”

“Of course not, you idiot. It’s happened again. This time it’s the Chambourdons.”

“You don’t wear contacts.”

“We’ve got to get out of here right now. The church . . . Hurry up!”

Inside the church Capucine vanished into one of the tiny transepts. And from there out a small door in the sacristy leading into a field at the back of the church. Alexandre was hard on her heels.

“Curse those Chambourdons,” Alexandre said. “It was a truly heinous crime to abandon that cassoulet.”

“I’m sure Magali will make you another. We’re not going to be leaving the mas for a while.”

When they reached the house, Alexandre puffing, they stopped on the terrace. “I need sustenance after all that emotion. Wait out here and I’ll get us both some pastis.”

“Not out here. Let’s drink it in the kitchen.”

“The kitchen? There’s no light in there. The windows are tiny.”

“That’s just the point.”

To compensate for the gloom, Capucine had a Lillet Blanc and Alexandre a double pure malt Scotch. Gradually, Capucine relaxed. She fluffed up the back of her hair in a feminine gesture.

“Tell me,” she asked, “how do you think I’d look as a blonde?”

F
or once, Inès was having a good day. Such a good day that she hardly noticed the poisoned seesawing between the unbridled ambition and desire for acceptance that ordained her life.

Years before, while still in law school, she had decided to consult a psychiatrist about it. All her friends had assured her that the process would make her feel far more comfortable in her skin and would heighten her productivity. Instead, the shrink had announced she had a serious case of something he called “dissociative identity disorder.” She had looked the term up and discovered it was the latest in cocktail party psychobabble. Her skin fit perfectly. So perfectly it was the font of her success. She had stalked out of the office. Just who the hell did that quack think he was talking to?

The trigger for her good mood was her discussion of a case with a
procureur
at the Palais de Justice. The prosecutor had been beyond admirative.

“This is beautifully prepared. Absolutely perfect,” he had said, tapping the bundle of papers tied up with a cloth tape between traditional red binders. “Even the greenest of procureurs couldn’t fail to get a conviction with this one. Your talent exceeds your reputation, and it’s quite a reputation. I know you have detractors who claim you’re a press hound, even a sensationalist, but that’s pure jealousy. You are by far the most talented juge we have.”

The meeting over, Inès smiled a tight but pleased smile and started down the marble staircase of the Palais de Justice. Of course, the culprit in the case was only a tiny fish, a mere anchovy, part of the management of a small private bank, specializing in so-called mid-cap deals. He had tried to sweeten his fees on a transaction by getting a cousin to buy a good-size hunk of a company he had been mandated to sell to an international conglomerate. Yes, a very little fish, but it was still a joy to think of him in the van on his way to prison.

At the bottom of the staircase, she could see the
procureur de la République,
an enormous man, made even larger by his long bloodred and black robe trimmed in faux ermine. He was encircled by a sycophantic entourage, a crimson shark in a cloud of pilot fish. Since he was titular head of all the Paris prosecutors, his function was primarily that of a senior government official rather than that of an actual practicing prosecuting attorney. Inès had shaken his hand three or four times at receptions, but they had never exchanged more than a few polite banalities.

When they were fifteen feet apart on the staircase, the procureur de la République dismissed his retinue with an imperial gesture and bounded up the steps with unexpected energy. He stopped on the step below Inès but still towered over her.

“Madame le Juge, what a happy coincidence. I was just going to call to ask you to lunch.”

“Lunch?” Inès said, unable to mask her surprise.

“Absolutely. I’ve been reviewing your cases. Your approaches are always innovative. I’ve been remiss in not spending more time with you.” Below them the cortege hovered; above, a small crowd accumulated, too deferential to descend.

“Why don’t we go to my chambers, have a little apéro, and see if we can’t find a suitable date?”

Inès assumed the chambers would be imposing, but was nonetheless surprised by the opulence. A huge oil of Jean Domat, the father of French jurisprudence, framed in dripping rococo, dominated the room. The piece belonged in the Louvre.

The procureur disappeared into a side chamber to remove his robes and returned in an immaculately cut suit with the red rosette over a silver ribbon of the
grand officier
of the Légion d’honneur conspicuous on its lapel. He produced a chased crystal decanter and two stemmed goblets.

“Pineau des Charentes,” the procureur announced. “A good friend of mine sends it to me from the Charente-Maritime.”

Inès’s seesaw reached its tipping point. Pineau des Charentes, an oversweet fortified wine, was the sort of thing working-class people gave their aged grandmothers, not something you offered a peer. The perceived slight felt like a slap and stung.

The procureur smiled at her over the rim of his glass, relishing its content. “Not only are your cases always brilliantly prepared, but you tie them up in record time. In many ways our work is like that of light cavalry. It’s all in the speed. The main thing is to strike before the enemy has time to organize its defense, don’t you agree?”

“No, I don’t. I prepare cases against guilty people, and I demonstrate their guilt with enough proof to resist even the most carefully structured defense.” Inès wondered where this was going. Bizarrely, he really did think the Pineau was something special. Maybe she had misunderstood.

“And your case against Tottinguer? Is that going to resist all defense, as well?”

Inès sat back in her armchair and waited for the rest. There was an eternal five-beat silence.

“The halls of the Palais are alive with rumors that you intend to investigate the son, André.”

Another five-beat silence.

“Sooner or later, these rumors will reach the outside world.”

Another silence. The procureur drained his glass and raised the decanter in Inès’s direction before he realized she hadn’t taken a single sip. He filled his glass and set it down on the table with a click.

“If your intentions reach the outside world, your case will be compromised. You may even be sued by the Tottinguers. That would be a good diversionary tactic for them to try, don’t you think?”

Another long silence. He had the sense of timing usually found only at the Comédie-Française. Inès decided she would drop in on one of his court appearances to see how he performed on his feet.

The procureur toyed with his glass, then looked up sharply, his eyes boring into Inès’s. She definitely was going to have to go see him in the
parquet.

“I also understand there is a possibility you might be able to receive enough corroborative evidence from inside the banque Tottinguer to present your case very quickly, which would be key tactically. As our Anglo-Saxon friends like to say, it’s time for you to either fish or cut bait, my dear.”

Inès stood up, smarting at the slight of being given a specific instruction. It took control not to storm out, slamming the door. But she had to admit he was right. Her timing on the case was off. And he was dead right that timing was all.

“Thank you for the apéro, Monsieur le Procureur de la République. You have a most excellent Pineau.”

He smiled at her. She was not sure if in complicity or mockery. As quietly as she could manage, she walked out.

On her way down the stairs she remembered that the question of lunch had not arisen.

Back at her office she told her secretary to go to the café and bring her back a
sandwich jambon-beurre
—ham in a baguette spread copiously with butter—and an Orangina. When her lunch arrived, she pushed the sandwich to one side of her desk but sucked greedily at the Orangina through a straw. The sweet-sharp taste of the soda erased the taste of the Pineau.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized how completely right he was about the timing. She slurped at her straw, enjoying the loud, vulgar rasp when she reached the bottom. The specter of Lévêque lurked. She hadn’t expected his tentacles to be so far-reaching.

She picked up her phone and buzzed her secretary. “Call our HR contact at Police Judiciaire headquarters. Have him prepare a list of suitable commissaires in the financial brigade to take charge of investigating a case. If possible, I’d like to review his suggestions this evening. I want to get going on this first thing tomorrow.”

She just had to face up to reality, awkward as it sometimes was. It made no sense at all to wait for Capucine.