Murder on the Mediterranean (Capucine Culinary Mystery) (24 page)

“I do, Madame le Juge.”

“It’s
Madame le Président,
” hissed the defense attorney, loudly enough to make a few of the spectators titter. The judge silenced them with a glance.

“And how do you plead?”

“I plead guilty, Madame le Président.”

“
Je vous en prie, Maître,
you wanted to say something,” the president said with a thin smile to the defense attorney.

“Merci, Président.
The defense has no reservations regarding the validity of either the confession or the plea, but it would like to be reassured about the bona fides of the jurisdictional issue.”

“My dear colleague,” the procureur said to the defense attorney, “how apropos of you to raise that issue. I was just about to call our first witness,
Capitaine de Vaisseau
Gilles de Bottin, of the SHOM, the Service Hydrographique et Océanographique de la Marine Nationale.”

A lean and fit man in his early forties stepped onto the witness stand, a slightly raised podium surrounded by a semicircular wooden rail, directly in front of the judges’ dais. The shoulder boards of his navy blue uniform bore five gold bands, signifying he held a rank equivalent to colonel in the army. He stood stiff and erect, almost at attention. The president looked down at him from her Olympian height.

“Capitaine de Vaisseau,” she said, tapping a thick file on the dais, “the crime in this case occurred in the Strait of Bonifacio. I understand the dividing line between French and Italian waters runs more or less through the middle of that strait. Is that correct?”

“Oui, Madame le Président.”

“And given that the body of the victim was recovered on the beach of . . .” Purely for show, she put on a pair of half-glasses and consulted the file. “Isola Piana, a deserted island off the northeast coast of Sardinia, is it possible the incident occurred in Italian waters? Are you able to shed light on the matter?”

“I am, Madame le Président. In our view, the incident took place well within French waters. If I can abuse the patience of the court, perhaps I could be allowed to show a chart that will illustrate our conviction.”

“Bien sûr, Capitaine. Proceed.”

Four sailors in baggy white jumpers with tar-flap bibs over the back marched stiffly into the courtroom. One erected an easel at a forty-five-degree angle to the three judges, two others placed a large marine chart on it, and the fourth stood stiffly, holding a large plastic tube. The chart showed the area between the southern coast of Corsica and the northern coast of Sardinia. A long red line and a large black dot had been placed on the chart. The officer stepped out of the witness stand and placed his finger on the black dot.

“This is the position the boat gave when they called the Porto Cervo port captain’s office.” He pointed to a thick dotted line. “And this line is the course they were following. It stands to reason that the victim went overboard between ten and thirty minutes before the person who made the radio call noted the position on the boat’s GPS. In other words, the incident happened at some point along this portion of the red line.”

He looked up at the president, who said nothing.

The sailor popped open the long tube and pinned a large piece of clear plastic film over the chart. The film was covered with swirling blue and red arrows.

“These are the winds and currents of that particular evening. Currents in blue, winds in red.”

The three judges leaned over the dais, examining the chart.

“We ran a computer simulation to model the course of the body.”

The sailor affixed another sheet of film. There was a multitude of almost parallel lines leading to the southwest from the red line. The captain tapped his finger on the island where Nathalie’s body was found.

“As you can see,” he said, tracing a path back to the red line, “the victim went overboard precisely here. Fifty-eight point three nautical miles into French territorial waters.”

The presiding judge made a note with a gold pen and then looked right and left at the two other judges. Both nodded.

“So there is no question that the incident occurred in French waters?”

“None whatsoever, Madame le Président.”

The judge looked in the direction of the defense attorney.

“Does this exposition satisfy you, Maître?”

“Certainly, Président. What higher authority in these matters could exist than the Marine Nationale?”

The four sailors packed up their paraphernalia and left.

The president made a few more notes and then conferred in whispers with the judges on either side. There was a sense of expectancy in the room. She capped her pen with an audible click.

“Très bien.
The case is clear. We will retire to chambers with the members of the jury and will return to pronounce sentence.”

The three judges donned their caps and filed out, followed by the assistants and then the members of the jury. In the courtroom, the whispers of the spectators crescendoed like a rising wind into a chorus of outspoken comments. Capucine looked around the room. In the opposite corner she could see Inès staring at her lap, apparently reading something. The door opened a crack, and the procureur de la République de Paris slipped through, looking dapper in a trim lightweight brown suit, a blue-checked shirt, and a navy blue silk tie. Capucine recognized the hierarchical head of the Paris magistrature by sight. He sat in the row behind Inès. Capucine thought the two exchanged a complicit look.

The door behind the dais opened, and the troop of black robes and dark blue street clothes returned.

“The accused will rise,” the president ordered.

Sure of himself, Serge rose, the hint of an expectant smile on his lips.

“Accused, we have deliberated this most heinous crime and are as dismayed as we are shocked. Your conduct reveals not only utter disregard for human life but also a disdain for womankind. It is abundantly clear that having bullied a defenseless, almost destitute woman, who worked long hours in your service, you took multiple sexual liberties with her. Because of your social and financial position in life, you felt it was your privilege to enjoy the freedom of her body.” She paused to let this sink in to the court.

“And when you had taken your fill of pleasure from that body and had grown bored with it, you were faced with, what was for you, the tediousness, for lack of a better word, of the chagrin of a servant on your luxurious vessel. You then engineered a confrontation in the middle of the night that resulted in the violent death of your lover, a woman who had served you faithfully with her nautical skill and”—she paused and lowered her voice dramatically—“her pulchritude.” She paused again to let the court absorb her disdain.

“In my view, there is abundant evidence here of premeditated murder.” She cast a sharp glance at the judge to her left, who wore no medals. “But the court is not in unanimous agreement in that regard. Therefore, we pronounce you guilty of willful homicide.”

There was a murmur in the spectators’ gallery, which the president stifled with a glance.

“The court sentences you to the maximum penalty allowable by law. Ten years’ incarceration.”

“No!” Serge shouted. “I’ve been tricked. This is unfair. I retract my confession. I retract my plea! I want a new trial!”

The two gendarmes grabbed his arms roughly. The murmuring in the spectators’ gallery rolled like the breaking wave of a flock of birds taking off.

“Control yourself, monsieur,” the president said, sneering at Serge. “The court is closed.” She rose and left, followed by the two other judges and the covey of participants. Serge was handcuffed and led through a door behind the prisoners’ dock.

In the hallway outside the courtroom, Capucine caught sight of Inès, who looked away from her and attempted to disappear into the crowd. Capucine rushed up and grabbed her upper arm. Inès pulled away, furious.

“You sold him down the river,” Capucine said.

Inès shrugged her shoulders with Gallic indifference.

“Inès, Serge was a fool, not a criminal. But you offered him up like a sacrificial lamb for God knows what political tricks you have up your sleeve.”

“Without sacrificial lambs the mechanics of the world would squeak to a stop like a machine without oil.” She jerked away from Capucine, eyes glinting madly.

“What happened had to have happened. In any case, a miscreant is a miscreant, and I have no patience with them. There is one fewer of them loose on the streets, and that’s to the good. Now that this nonsense is finally over, I need to get back to work.” Inès shot Capucine a savage look. “I need to get back to work to salvage a case that I was already inches away from bringing to bay. A case in which I lost a precious opportunity because you let your senseless concerns and sensitivities stand in the way of justice. Now, let me go and do my job.”

She gave Capucine an even more acid look. “And thank your lucky stars that you even have a job.” She paused and shot a stream of chef’s knives into Capucine’s eyes. “Without my indulgence, it could have so easily been you in the van on the way to La Santé.”

C
apucine bolted down the long marble staircase of the courthouse, her mind a vortex of resentment that she had been drafted into the very cabal of power brokers she had joined the Police Judiciaire to escape in the first place. But outside in the sun, her thoughts aligned themselves like a line of rising dominoes. There was only one culprit in this story, her. Serge’s case was a no-brainer. All he had had to do was retain a mediatized defense lawyer. The lawyer would have had a field day overturning the case against Serge, painting a lurid tableau of police brutality while obtaining a confession under duress, portraying Nathalie as a gold-digging slag who frequently victimized yacht charterers, then charcoaling a sketch of a drunken quarrel on a wet deck, undoubtedly provoked by Nathalie, which resulted in a tragic accident. And if Serge had thought to mention Capucine’s discovery of the jade pendant at any point in his interrogation, the defense lawyer could certainly have used it to create an artistic, soft-focus depth to his handiwork.

There was only one reason this miracle-working lawyer had not appeared and could not have. And that was her. Serge had believed Capucine was speaking through Inès when she bade him be as cooperative as possible and not rock the boat of justice in any way. As a result, Serge had not raised a finger to help himself and now would have his life scarred irreparably by a decadelong jail sentence.

Not only was her guilt overwhelming, but the very purpose of Capucine’s life had been compromised. She didn’t even know where to go. Certainly not to her brigade. Nor to her empty apartment. Nor anywhere.

She extracted her phone from her bag and pressed Alexandre’s speed dial.

“Chérie!” Alexandre exclaimed happily.

“Buy me lunch.”

“Right now? It’s not even eleven.”

“Right now.”

“I know just the place.”

They met at the outdoor terrace of the Louvre restaurant facing I. M. Pei’s pyramid in the Cour Napoléon. The terrace was sparsely populated with tourists drinking café au lait and smirking at the herds of other tourists milling around the pyramid. Alexandre ordered a bottle of champagne.

“The court case didn’t work out, did it?”

“He got ten years.”

“Good Lord.” There was a long pause. Alexandre studied the straight lines of tiny bubbles rising to the top of his flute. “How long before they let him out?”

“Not less than six. Probably eight or so.”

Another long silence. Alexandre was visibly imagining the implications of going to jail in your thirties and coming out in your forties, saddled with the full stigma French society imposed on ex-convicts. Alexandre poured himself another glass.

Capucine let the impact of the court’s decision lie heavy on the table. They stayed until three, lunching inside in the dramatically Rothkoed walls of the restaurant, then returning outside to the terrace for another bottle of champagne. The alcoholic buzz did little more than palliate the pain, but it was enough. She touched the speed-dial icon for her brigade.

“Commissaire, finally!” the receptionist said. “The Ministry of the Interior has called three times.
Conseiller
Bufo would like to invite you to tea in his office at four this afternoon. Shall I call and tell them you’re coming?”

Capucine started to say no, but then decided,
Either you play the game or you don’t.
The middle ground never worked.

She wondered what Bufo wanted. She’d met him once before. He was the cabinet member in charge of the country’s various police forces and internal intelligence services. Their last meeting had been disastrous. She had been summoned with great pomp to be congratulated on her cleverness in solving a case as if she had specifically set out to shield a shady crony of the administration. Capucine had finally exploded when she was told she was to be decorated with the Légion d’honneur for her “service to the state,” storming out of Bufo’s office, the door resonating like a cannon blast.

Capucine didn’t know what to expect. There had been no repercussions for insulting a dignitary in the stratosphere of the government, but on the other hand, she had never received the decoration, either.

She entered his enormous office with its gilt-trimmed paneling and automobile-size Louis XV desk, undoubtedly an original period piece. French windows overlooked the cool green garden of the Hôtel de Beauvau. One of them was ajar, and the pleasant scent of fresh-mowed grass filled the large room. Despite the sense of peace, Capucine approached Bufo’s desk with trepidation.

Bufo’s suety face beamed up at her, appraising. His pulpy lips simpered.

“Sit down, Commissaire, please do. This is the second time I’ve come across the brilliance of your work. And the second time I’ve summoned you to congratulate you. The last time we met, you refused a decoration. I was impressed with your humility.”

His brow pleated into flabby folds, and the leer straightened out.

“Even though you refuse public accolades, I can assure you the government has every intention of persevering in rewarding you for your zeal.”

The puddingy smile was back.

“I have personally dictated a note of commendation, which will appear in your file, over my signature, moving you up several notches in the promotion ranking.”

Capucine groaned inwardly.

He paused and looked at Capucine flatly. She felt like a dragonfly alighting on the imagined safety of a lily pad, only to discover that a viscid toad already had its tongue out to flick her up.

“And I also made sure that your file makes no mention whatsoever of the fact that at one point some dolt in your service might actually have had the preposterous idea that you could have been a suspect in the case.” He laughed uproariously at the enormity of the dolt in question’s stupidity, the fat on his protuberant stomach roiling like a sea calming down after a storm.

“And to what do I owe this?”

Bufo looked at her as if he did not understand the question. Eyebrows raised in innocence, he said, “Why, for purging the case of its extraneous complications and going straight for a pragmatic denouement.”

“Extraneous complications?”

“Coyness is not generally viewed as an attribute in a policeman, Commissaire. Shell casings, jade amulets, things that had really nothing to do with the case.” He smiled cynically at her, his flaccid lips squeezed into an obscene moue. “Commissaire, you fully deserve the early promotion you’ll receive.” He leaned over the table conspiratorially. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you become the youngest commissaire divisionnaire in the Police Judiciaire.”

He went on. Capucine didn’t listen. She realized she was being conscripted into the ranks of senior police officers who were also government toadies. Her blood boiled. Bufo misunderstood her reaction.

“I can see you are concerned, Commissaire. Put your mind at rest. The shell casing from your gun is long gone, consigned to the oubliettes of the administration, from whence it will never return.”

Capucine felt her hand strain to grab an ornate inkwell on the desk and hurl it into Bufo’s flaccid face. At great expense she managed to construct a simulacrum of a smile. She rose.

“Monsieur le Conseiller, thank you for your time. This has been an extremely illuminating meeting.”