Deadly Tasting (9 page)

“One thing is for sure: the grooves are fresh.”

“Yes, and it’s time to go to bed. Tomorrow is another day!”

10

“They just bumped off another one, Mr. Cooker.”

They were talking on their cell phones, and Benjamin could hear the exhaustion and exasperation in the inspector’s voice. As usual, it also contained a note of belligerence. When Benjamin didn’t reply, Barbaroux raised his voice even more. Now his delivery was strident.

“Élie Péricaille, eighty-nine years old. He tried to defend himself, and I can’t even begin to describe the carnage. Blood up to the ceiling! And the smell. You don’t want to know. The guys in the lab say he must have been rotting for three or four days.”

Benjamin still said nothing.

“I’m in deep shit, Mr. Cooker. Half the glasses are now full. Hello, are you there?”

“It all depends on how you look at it, Inspector. You could also say that half the glasses are still empty, fortunately.”

“That’s just like you, putting that kind of spin on it,” Barbaroux said. His voice wasn’t quite as loud. Benjamin guessed that he was trying to collect himself. “We were scheduled to meet later this morning, but would you mind if I came over now? Actually, I’m here already.”

“Do I really have a choice? Come on up. I’m here.”

When Barbaroux walked into the office, a tulip glass filled with Armagnac awaited him on the leather desk blotter. The winemaker was sipping Grand Yunnan in a porcelain cup in the colors of the Grand Dukedom of Kent, royal blue, scarlet, and gold.

“Okay, all cards on the table!” the inspector said. “Who’s going to start?”

Benjamin took a sip of tea and smacked his lips.

“You go, detective. For once, the English won’t fire first.”

“As you like.” Barbaroux smiled. “First of all, I have to tell you that little Duboyne de Ladonnet was terrific with the two detectives I sent over. He confirmed what we already knew about Grémillon and Chaussagne and their political activities during the occupation. In fact, he knows more about it than our intelligence services, and that’s saying something!”

“As far as Édouard Prébourg, the third victim, is concerned, I assume you also went looking for information on his wartime activities?”

“His trail was much easier to follow. He did jail time, and intelligence had information on him, primarily because of his ties with the facist Falange movement after the occupation. Later, he became involved in one crooked scheme after another: pimping, fraud, bank robbery. At that time, he was crashing in the old Mériadeck neighborhood and had teamed with the infamous Albert Bitrian, who was calling the shots in the slums of Bordeaux. A bloody bastard, that Bitrian! Strip joints, illegal gambling, extortion, a bit of opium in the whorehouses down by the port, and all the hoodlums in the city kissing up to him. You didn’t want to piss off the Bull.”

“What did you say? The Bull?”

“Yes, that’s what they called him, because he had a tendency to see red when he came across a communist. And incidentally, the Gestapo didn’t mind using his henchmen when they needed to bust up the Resistance fighters. The most surprising thing is how he made out after the liberation. He must have accommodated everybody, because no one bothered him. It’s the same old story with most of the big shots in the area. Okay, I’ve given you my basic facts. Now it’s your turn.”

Benjamin put down his teacup. “What a coincidence. I have also heard of the Bull.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, Alain Massip remembered this man when I asked him about Jules-Ernest Grémillon. It seems he often went to a billiard hall with friends, and a certain Armand used to come by the shop and pick him up in a red Renault Dauphine, along with someone nicknamed the Bull. Why are you smiling like that, Inspector?”

“Go on, please. I’ll tell you later.”

“Virgile and I went for a walk in Petite Racine, and…”

“And?”

“And we found what I believe is this Dauphine. It’s in a garage belonging to the deceased Jouvenaze. That must be the fellow named Armand who used to come by and pick up Grémillon.”

“Very good, Mr. Cooker! I was smiling because we have found something interesting too: a membership roster for a nonprofit organization dating from the early nineteen fifties. All of our shady characters are listed as members of the French Billiard Club, which often met at Chez Joseph, a bar in Mériadeck. It was protected by Bitrian’s goons. A guy named Joseph Larède owned the place. He flirted with various fascist movements during the war, especially the Legion of French Volunteers. Their meeting place was right next door to this building, at 28 Allées de Tourny. A lot of them were degenerates who wanted to go to Russia and fight Bolshevism. Joseph Larède dropped out and became involved in the black market. He got in trouble after the war for smuggling sardines and whisky. He died in 1968, certainly not before seeing the barricades and student demonstrations all over Paris. He must have died of anger. Serves him right!”

“But I haven’t told you everything, Inspector,” Benjamin said, a bit uneasy. “I have a little revelation for you, which will require a bit of indulgence on your part.”

“You’ve used some slightly unorthodox methods in your investigation, and you don’t want to get into any trouble, I suppose?” Barbaroux was wearing an amused smile.

“Exactly.”

“Go on. I promise that when I leave here I will have seen nothing and heard nothing.”

“We went snooping in Armand Jouvenaze’s house. Well, just the cellar, and we discovered some very disturbing evidence.”

The winemaker recounted the nocturnal escapade. The captain twirled his tulip glass on the leather desk blotter as he listened.

“Mr. Cooker, I have one word to say to you: bravo! You may have put your finger on the one point that’s been gnawing at me from the beginning of this investigation.”

“The repeated use of Pétrus wine in these hateful acts frustrates me too. What a waste of the best merlots in creation! It’s a sin, pouring that nectar in the presence of such lowlifes. This distresses me even more because it sullies the reputation of Pétrus: a round, supple, rich, charming, joyful, elegant, and vigorous wine. It’s a wine of peace and generosity.”

“That’s all very nice, but we have to find out why the wine plays a part in each of these crimes. Where are these fucking bottles, and why are they so important to the murderer? The answer is definitely at the bottom of the cellar, don’t you agree?”

“I hope you’re right, Inspector. By the way, I have a story to tell you. I don’t know if it’s true or if it’s in the diocesan archives, but they say that one day the bishop of Bordeaux paid a visit to one of his abbots and reprimanded him just before he left. ‘Father, I am disturbed by all the spirits in your cellar.’ The priest calmly answered, ‘Put your mind at ease, Monsignor. They all saw the priest before they died.’”

“That’s a good one.” Barbaroux laughed. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to steal it. I know some friends who would enjoy it.”

“Go ahead. You have my permission.”

Barbaroux left Benjamin’s office after telling him that he would investigate the French Billiard Club. As it turned out, the club had never had more than twelve members, and the list had not changed for two decades. Jules-Ernest Grémillon, Émile Chaussagne, Armand Jouvenaze, Jean Sauveterre, Édouard Prébourg, Albert Bitrian, and Joseph Larède were all part of the group, as well as the latest victim, Élie Péricaille, who had also been a particularly sadistic member of Milice. This left only four more names: Gabriel Bergerive, Gustave Tasdori, Arthur Darnaudon, and Edmond Cosinac. These men were still living, and they were given protection. Only one still lived on his own. The others were in nursing homes between Langon and Mont-de-Marsen.

Barbaroux called Benjamin the next day to tell him that he had obtained search warrants for the home of the deceased Armand Jouvenaze, as well as that of his nephew. He told Benjamin that he and Virgile could accompany the police as wine experts. He just asked that they keep their distance from the search and become involved only if bottles of Pétrus were found.

Police cars raced to Petite Racine, their lights flashing and their sirens blaring. When the officers arrived at Dominique Jouvenaze’s home to get the keys to Uncle Armand’s house, no one answered the door. A locksmith was called to open old Jouvenaze’s door, and the rooms were searched from top to bottom. Pictures were taken in the cellar, where a technician took plaster impressions of the grooves running across the dirt floor. After an hour of painstaking and unceremonious searching, they could only conclude that there was no bottle in the cellar that would shed any light on the investigation.

Barbaroux went back to Dominique Jouvenaze’s house and pounded on the door for more than a quarter of an hour, to no avail. The locksmith was called upon once more, and he eventually managed to release the bolt.

When the door gave way, two detectives burst into the house, their guns drawn. But no one put up any resistance. In the kitchen, a purple-faced Dominique Jouvenaze was swinging from the exposed beam. It took three men to get the writhing man down. It was too late. Lying on the tiled floor, Dominique Jouvenaze died in a final gasp.

Under the sink, the detectives found two cases of Pétrus. Only one was open. The inspector pulled it out and passed it to Benjamin, who picked up one of the bottles. Saint Peter, holding the keys to paradise, stared indulgently at the winemaker, his face barely obscured by the dust shrouding the black and bloodred label distinctly marked 1942.

The windows were open, but the house still smelled of mildew and urine. On the plastic floral tablecloth, a handwritten letter quivered in the breeze.

11

My dear child,

By the time you read this letter, I will be gone. I know that I often annoyed you with my advice and petty obsessions. Do you remember that tartan scarf that you never wanted to wear to school? We played a little game every day when it was cold outside. I would pull it up around your ears in the morning. And in the afternoon, when you came home, I would find it at the bottom of your schoolbag. I just wanted you to be warm, and you were afraid you would look silly in front of your friends.

Pardon my handwriting. It’s so unsteady. But it is not so much my hands that hurt or the fact that I’m getting weaker and weaker. I’m trembling because I barely have the courage to tell you so many things that I should have told you long before I became so frail. Pain and sickness are nothing, compared to what I have needed to reveal for so long. How many times did I try? How many times did I change my mind and back down? God forgive me for lying out of fear, cowardice, and the prospect of losing you! I spent my life lying to you, your brother, your sister, even myself. Your father was the only one who understood my dread, but you know how sweet and thoughtful he was, and in the end, he was as fearful and weak as I have been.

Today I know it’s time to talk to you about yourself, finally. Before you read the rest of this letter, go and find a chair to sit in and take a deep breath.

Your real name is Samuel Frydman, and you are the son of Isaac and Irma Frydman. I knew your real parents, and when they asked me to take you in, I was very honored to help them. Your father was a man who commanded respect as soon as he spoke. He was a professor at the law school in Paris, and he met your mother at a concert at the Salle Pleyel. She was young—ten years younger than Samuel—but she was wise beyond her years. I saw some pictures of her at that time in her life, and she looked very distinguished, which is better than beautiful. Her family lived in Warsaw, but she left everything to be with your father in France. She even left behind her career as a pianist and all the hopes everyone had for her.

I didn’t know them very well. Our conversations were often too brief, but they had handsome faces and beautiful blue eyes. Yours are the only blue eyes we have ever had in the Jouvenaze family. It was Dr. Capderoque, the doctor from Libourne and a good friend of your father’s, who took them in and hid them in the abandoned monastery at the intersection leading to Petite Racine. This man was good and generous. He listened only to his heart when he decided to protect Jews no one else would help. It was 1942, and I realize now that he was naïve, as well as good and generous. Dr. Capderoque thought his status and influence, his Catholic faith, and the good will of his many acquaintances were enough to save an entire family. For two years, Isaac, Irma, your brother, Simon, and your sister, Sarah, lived behind closed shutters in fear of being discovered. They even went without heat in the winter, because they feared someone would see smoke coming out of the chimney.

The doctor trusted us enough to ask us to help these poor people. Under the pretext of airing out the monastery, I was able to help your parents by bringing them hot meals, taking care of their laundry, and keeping them in supplies. Your father (I’m talking about Antoine, my husband, because it’s hard not to think of him as your dad) helped me enormously.

Once a month, the doctor would spend the weekend at the monastery. He told people that he was doing light maintenance on the grounds. What he was really doing was bringing books to the family and generally looking after them. Irma became pregnant in the spring of 1943, just as I did. We were both very proud of our big bellies. We wondered which of us would give birth first. You were born November 17, eight days before your sister Madeleine. Irma’s pregnancy was more difficult than mine. I’m sure her anxiety over giving birth in secret played a part. The fact is, she could have died if Antoine hadn’t gone by bicycle to Libourne to get the good doctor. She came out of it very weak and didn’t have enough milk to nurse you. You were beginning to waste away, and we were all terribly worried.

Luckily, I had given birth to your sister at exactly twelve fifteen on November 25, and Antoine, without asking me, went to get you at the monastery. When your little hands grabbed my breast, I knew there would be enough milk for two babies. Irma was heartbroken but also relieved. She knew you would be saved. With your parents’ consent, we went to the city hall and registered you as our own son. That is how you and Madeleine became twins.

In January 1944, during the nights of the tenth and the eleventh, there was a big roundup, and we found out through Dr. Capderoque that two hundred and twenty-eight Jews, both adults and children, had been confined to a synagogue in Bordeaux and then sent to Drancy in cattle cars. The train stopped at the Libourne station to transport other Jews who had been arrested in the region, as well as Blaye.

We paid even more attention to our every movement between the house and the monastery. We had to be guarded around everyone and heighten our vigilance. Irma was doing a little better, despite the terrible winter that year. I don’t know, and we will never know, how Armand discovered that your family was there. I never felt close to my brother-in-law, but I couldn’t imagine that he would be that soulless to have any part in what happened next. When he and his friends got to the monastery, they were already drunk. I never understood why he started going to that billiard club. People in the area said it was owned by a collaborationist, and all sorts of informers and black-market traffickers from Bordeaux frequented the place. What could have come over him that he would wallow among such swine?

I would rather not tell you exactly what they did to your family. I’ve had too many nightmares. Just know that your father was killed with a knife while trying to defend his family. Irma, Simon, and Sarah were sent to the Mérignac camp before being shipped to Auschwitz on the convoy of May 13, 1944. They never returned.

Your family’s other executioners were Jules-Ernest Grémillon, Émile Chaussagne, Gabriel Bergerive, Édouard Prébourg, Gustave Tasdori, Jean Sauveterre, Arthur Darnaudon, Élie Péricaille, Joseph Larède, Albert Bitrian, and Edmond Cosinac.

I don’t know which one of them held the knife that killed your father, but they are all guilty of exterminating your family. Now you know why I never had anything to do with Armand. You can only imagine the depth of his darkness when I tell you that we saw him prowling around the monastery the day after the crime. We watched him carry out several cases of wine. I believe Dr. Capderoque kept them stored there. That good man had already been arrested and shot.

I think Armand might have had some suspicions about you. Every day I sensed him spying on us from behind his curtains, and I was always on edge when I saw him watching you playing near the barn or in the yard. I was afraid that your eyes would give you away. But I believe that Armand, as depraved as he was, could not turn in his own brother’s family. Likewise, your father didn’t have the heart to turn in his brother after the liberation. So we ignored one another, although it wasn’t easy having him so close.

When he died, we inherited his house, of course. There weren’t many people at the burial, just a few friends, I was told. I never wanted to set foot in his house, and neither did your father.

So now you know. They are just names on a piece of paper, and they are not worthy of being called men. Maybe they are dead today. Who knows what became of them, what fate had in store for them? Whatever you do, do not try to find them. I know you. There is no point seeking revenge after all these years. I am sure their lives have been miserable, and one day or another they will pay for their crimes, if they haven’t already.

Although there’s not a day that I don’t grieve for the mother who brought you into the world, I thank God for the privilege of raising you as my son. I have loved you with every fiber of my being. Maybe when you were little, you thought I loved you too much. But now you understand how fiercely I wanted to protect you.

Take care of yourself, my love, and when you wrap that scarf around your neck, remember me.

Your mother, in spite of everything.