“The bad guy is French?”
“What else did you hear?”
“Nothing, nothing else,” Luc said.
“The tables are turned, aren’t they? I suppose you want
me
to talk shop now,” I said, wagging my empty glass in his face and grinning broadly. “I suppose this interests you more than your pyramid of skulls.”
“Okay, I’m an open book.” Luc spread his arms out in the air. “Ask me anything, then tell me all you know.”
I thought he would see past my fake smile, but I tried anyway. “So when you told me you were going to the gendarmerie at three this morning, where did you really go?”
“Aha! So you’re taking your lead from Jacques now? Asking the questions that he asked? That’s beneath you, Alexandra. It’s exactly like I said. I took the bones to my office, but decided there was no urgency to involving the police in the middle of the night.”
“You were gone more than an hour.”
“Now you’re bluffing, Ms. Cooper. I may have to cut you off the booze,” Luc said, taking my glass from my hand and turning it upside down. “You were sleeping so soundly when I came in, you couldn’t have had any idea what time it was. If you’re implying that I was off clipping lotus blossoms in the pond, I’ll take you to the airport right this minute.”
“Just practicing my cross-examination skills, darling. If you fill me up, I promise to be more polite.” I righted my champagne flute and extended it to him. “You want to hear about your rapist?”
“Oxymoronic, darling. This is France. We don’t have rapists.”
Luc and I had argued about that issue more times than I could count. He was trying to return the insult. “Your women just under-report because of the general attitude toward sexual violence in this country. And you have a justice system that doesn’t know how to deal with these crimes.”
“So what happened?”
“Mike says the guy was staying at the Eurotel.”
“Not exactly the Plaza Athénée.” Luc wasn’t impressed with the perp’s choice, a French-owned chain of moderately priced hotels, fine for the business traveler but without the luxurious appointments he liked.
“Well, he was in the presidential suite. Twenty-eighth floor, with views down to the Statue of Liberty.”
“That should have cost him plenty.”
“It did. He arrived Thursday night for meetings on Friday and was due to leave last evening. The front desk gave him the courtesy
of a late checkout at six
P.M.
, because he was on the final flight to Paris.”
“Air France number nine from JFK. Eleven-twenty departure. I know it well.”
“Scheduled for a quick dinner with his daughter, who’s an assistant to the French ambassador to the UN, before the flight.”
“Busy man,” Luc said. “Where was his wife?”
“At home in Paris. Or should I say at one of their homes. So the maid bumps into the headwaiter from room service, backing out of the suite with the tray table. She was anxious to get the room turned over so the manager could sell the suite again, or upgrade some VIP on a Saturday night arrival. So at five-forty-five, the waiter tells her he thinks the room is empty, ’cause he didn’t hear any noise inside when he opened the door to get the tray. But it’s huge, according to Mike. The living area alone is thirteen hundred square feet—and there’s a bedroom and two baths.”
“She went in?” Luc asked.
“Yes, the waiter told her she could get to work. So she announced herself and called out ‘housekeeping’ several times—just to be sure the guest was gone.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“How could she have known? The waiter closed the door behind her, and as she started to straighten up the room and strip the bed, out from the bathroom comes our perp.”
“He was—about to leave?” Luc asked.
“Apparently not. He was naked. Completely naked. Just out of the shower.”
“She should have taken off,” he said emphatically. “She should have left at once. She obviously caught him off guard.”
“I hope you’re just playing devil’s advocate.
He
obviously surprised her. She’d been told the room was unoccupied, okay? She announced herself, loud and clear, while the door was still open. She apologized and tried to back out. She told him she was sorry.”
“What stopped her from leaving?”
“The perp did. He grabbed her by the wrist and told her not to go, not to be sorry. She was scared, she told the cops. Frightened of him and just as frightened that she’d lose her job if she got into a screaming match with a high-rolling guest.”
“Did he threaten her?”
“I don’t know the exact words, but Mike said he did.”
“Well, if Mike told you, then it must be so,” Luc said flippantly, spearing a piece of crabmeat and devouring it.
“It doesn’t really matter what was verbalized, the guy threw her onto the bed. He lifted the skirt of her uniform, ripped her panty hose, and penetrated.”
Luc snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”
“Not just like that, okay? He had a head start by being naked, and aroused as well. He pinned her to the bed and was inside her briefly until she pushed him off, within a few seconds.”
“And that’s rape in your country?”
“I’m not done.” Forcible penile penetration, however slight and for however short a period of time, established the elements of the crime of first-degree rape. “Then he pushed her onto her knees, on the floor, and demanded oral sex. When he ejaculated, she spit it out.”
Luc had no smart answer for that fact.
“Semen on the carpet, on the wall of the room, and on her uniform. Sort of supports what she’s saying, don’t you think? And they’ll have DNA results by the end of the day.”
“So I guess he missed his plane,” Luc mused, stabbing another piece of the salad.
“To the contrary. The entire episode with the maid took twenty minutes, start to finish.”
“Not exactly a seduction, even for the most convincing Frenchman.”
“The hotel surveillance photos have him rushing out a bit later, toothpaste smeared across his cheek. A quick dinner with his daughter and he actually made it to the airport in time to board. If it
wasn’t for the thick fog at JFK and an hour’s flight delay, he’d have reached home and be having brunch with his wife just about now.”
“I can’t imagine what makes that such an important case in the States,” Luc said, pushing the salad aside in anticipation of his langouste. “She’s just a chambermaid, after all.”
I hoped my sunglasses concealed the expression in my eyes. “I see. So that makes her—what? Not worthy of belief? Not entitled to justice? Or makes the perp too powerful to have our system bother with her?”
“No, no, darling.” Luc was searching for a way to back off his obvious prejudice. “I just mean it’s not international news, really, is it? That’s why Battaglia isn’t looking for you. Maybe one day of tabloid headlines, then back to business. Not likely to make the light of day in the French press.”
“I’ll bet you tonight’s caviar that you’re wrong.”
Luc was enjoying himself now. “And I was going to order up the finest beluga. Almas caviar, from Iran. It’s white, and among the rarest in the world. Shall we say a small tin for twenty-five thousand?”
“I’ll settle for something a little more subtle.”
“And why do you think you can win? It’s only seven in the morning in New York. I guess by dinnertime here we’ll have a clue.”
“Maybe if I tell you his name, you’ll concede on the spot.”
“So you buried the lede, did you? You know who he is?”
“I’m certainly betting that you do,” I said, as the waiter approached with a tray and Luc nodded approval of the large grilled langoustes that were set in front of us.
“I hope you don’t spoil my appetite, Alex. Who’s the guy?”
“Mohammed Gil-Darsin.”
Luc lost all interest in lunch and focused his attention on me. He let out a low whistle, clearly surprised by hearing the name. “MGD? The detectives must be pulling your leg, darling. It simply can’t be.”
“Why is that?”
“Well—well, he’s—uh—he’s brilliant, for one thing. He’s very popular in France, not to mention his political future at home. He’s got a fabulous wife.” Luc was stammering he was so agitated. “Mo’s a player, all right—but—uh—that’s different. I simply don’t believe he’d rape anyone. He wouldn’t have to, Alex. He’s quite attractive. Brains, power, money—all of that. I mean, really, darling—a chambermaid?”
I sat back on my chair and exhaled. It was as though every conversation I’d had with Luc about my work since we’d met had gone in one ear and out the other. If this was his attitude, I knew how most people hearing the news would also react.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
“Papa Mo has lived in a villa in Grasse for thirty years.” Grasse was the town adjacent to Mougins, whose thousands of acres of jasmine and hyacinth had long made it the perfume capital of the world. “He was my father’s client long before he was mine.”
“He was a dictator, Luc. And a thief.”
“A scoundrel, maybe. I didn’t care much for his politics, but he’s a charming man.”
“I asked if you know MGD.”
Luc looked away from me, at a distant point out in the bay. “Of course I do, Alex, though not very well. He isn’t a close friend or anything like that. He’s a client, a customer. He was just in the restaurant for dinner a week ago.”
I had no appetite for lunch. Luc, it was clear, was happier eating than talking to me.
The sun, the champagne, and the lack of sleep the night before combined to knock me out on the lounge chair. When I opened my eyes an hour later, Luc was napping also.
Nina Baum, my college roommate—and still my best friend—had tried to put the brakes on my love affair with Luc. She liked him and understood what I found so appealing about him—his intelligence and accomplishments, his great sense of style and adventure, his romantic courtship of me—Nina got all that.
But she worried about the superficial nature of our relationship. I had no time for Luc when I was experiencing the demands of a trial that required all my intellectual energy and emotion. And I had little understanding of a career that appeared to be so glamorous, in contrast to mine, with problems no greater than overcooking the entrée or recommending the wrong wine—a career designed to provide pleasure to a consumer for as many hours as a great meal lasted.
As Luc worked ferociously hard to open a new business in New York, I had come to appreciate the demands on a restaurant owner and many of the obstacles in the way of success. Had he absorbed
nothing about the somewhat bizarre but fascinating professional world that gave me such great satisfaction?
He lifted his head and squinted at me. “Where are you, Alex? What are you thinking?”
“Nothing serious. I’m mesmerized by the view.”
“That’s as it should be,” he said, reaching over to me and squeezing my hand. “Another hour? This is the only spot in the world where I think I can let go of everything and nap.”
“Fine with me.”
On the other hand, my great friend Joan Stafford was entirely in favor of the way I had plunged headlong into this relationship. The writer and her husband, Jim Hageville, a world-renowned journalist, had married at my home on the Vineyard. Luc was a longtime friend of Jim’s—which added instant respectability to his credentials—and we met at my home on their wedding day. As much as Joan championed my legal career, now she was rooting for me to give up the often grueling work of the courtroom and move here to Mougins permanently to be with Luc.
When I’d boarded the flight to Nice the night before last, I was entirely in sync with Joan’s plan. But at this very moment, I thought Nina was right. I was in love with a man I hardly knew. The aspects of the long-distance romance that made it so exciting and titillating were also the very things that made it impossible to get inside each other’s daily life and routine.
I looked at my watch. It was two-thirty on a Sunday afternoon, and eight-thirty in the morning at home. I felt a tinge of regret about agreeing to stay off my BlackBerry during this trip. Mike and Mercer came from backgrounds as different from mine as one could imagine, but we had the same respect for the criminal justice system and the same value for the dignity of human life. Both of them had helped train me—every bit as much as the lawyers from whom I’d learned—in the art of investigating cases, in the search for the truth that characterized the way a great prosecutor’s office worked. Mike’s call—and Luc’s response—had unsettled me.
I rolled on my side away from Luc and covered my shoulders with a yellow-and-white-striped beach towel. I wondered whether Lisette’s body had been removed from the edge of the pond yet, and if there were any forensic experts in this area who would assist in the death investigation.
The anxiety gnawed at me until I pushed this morning’s images out of my mind, and I fell asleep again. I didn’t awaken until Luc kissed me on the top of my head.
“It’s almost four o’clock. Another swim and we go?”
I stretched my arms up in the air to reach Luc’s face. “It’s warmer in the pool. At the speed you drive that thing, I’ll form icicles on the way up to Mougins if I get wet here.”
“Off we go, then. I’ve got all those hungry mouths to feed.”
The sun was already dropping lower in the sky as I pulled on my sweater and slacks and gathered my belongings. “Do you have a lot of reservations for tonight?”
“Completely full. And you know how happy that makes me. There’s a private party in the back of the main room,” Luc said. He had created one of the most beautiful dining spaces in France, which complemented the exquisite food and premium service. “We’ll turn each of the tables in front over twice. And you and I are dining in
le zinc
.”
“Perfect.”
Le zinc
was the bar attached to the restaurant. The elegance of the dining room with its crisp white linens, shining Christofle silver, crystal wineglasses, and the soft spring green of the painted trim was a sharp contrast to the turn-of-the-century feel in the much cozier adjacent room. It was intimate in the most casual way, a long wooden counter that Andre Rouget had rescued from a Parisian bistro and transported to the restaurant, across from a row of tables that sat beneath nineteenth-century posters warning of the dangers of
l’absinthe
or glamorizing the nightclubs and brothels of the day.