Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery (17 page)

“
Pas de problème,
” Thébaud answered. “I have friends in Gordes and was due for a trip. Plus, I enjoy your wines.”

Bonnard smiled. “Thank you. That's a compliment, coming from such an expert. Our wines in the south may never be comparable to a Côtes de Nuit, but…”

“Ah! A Côtes de Nuit! As if!” Thébaud burst out, laughing.

Bonnard looked at the young man, imagining how he could describe Hippolyte Thébaud to Élise later that evening. He was no
good at remembering the names of movie stars, so he couldn't compare Thébaud's face to another man's. He knew that the wine expert's pale-blue eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips were beautiful, but it was his thick mop of curly blond hair and elegant clothing (a pale-green linen suit with a pink polka-dot bow tie, and white patent-leather brogues) that Bonnard found so striking.

“So the thief has returned,” Thébaud said, looking up with visible admiration at Bonnard's manor house and extensive outbuildings.

“Yes, and we were all here,” Bonnard said. “I noticed the theft early this morning, and my son and I have tried to do an inventory of what was taken. It's just like the first time—odd bottles here and there, and not necessarily our best.”

“Really?” Thébaud asked. “Usually, the second time around the thief is more selective.” Thébaud looked behind him at the property's massive wrought-iron gates and the high stone wall that surrounded the courtyard. “Do they come and go on foot?”

“That's my guess. My wife and I are both light sleepers and so would hear a vehicle. That said, we obviously didn't hear the thief taking bottles out of the cellar.”

“How do they get over that wall?” Thébaud asked.

“Ah, I think they come through the vineyard. There's a small gate beside the house that leads to an old vegetable garden, and beyond that are the vines, open to the road. The lock on the gate has been broken for years. I just remembered about the gate this morning and had my son put a padlock on it.”

“Are the police coming to check for prints?”

“Today, in fact. It surprised me that they'd dust for prints for stolen wine.”

“Wine theft has become big business, and it's surprisingly common. Every day I read reports of wine thefts, ranging from
hundreds of bottles to a couple here and there. It's amazing what people will do for grape juice.” Thébaud smiled at the irony of his statement, given that he had spent five years in prison for wine theft.

They walked across the graveled courtyard of the domaine, and Thébaud took in the graceful proportions and yellow stone of the manor house and the outbuildings that flanked it.

“People will steal just a few bottles?” Bonnard asked.

“Sadly, yes,” Thébaud replied. “One of France's top diplomats was just fired from his Hong Kong post last month for sneaking away from a private club with two bottles of old Bordeaux worth more than five thousand euros. I guess he figured he had diplomatic immunity. At least he had good taste.” Thébaud laughed at his own joke. “But most wine thieves are professionals—upmarket criminals like those who steal old masters and antiques, to order. They usually know what they're going to steal beforehand and then go in and do it—if not the first time, then the second. Your break-in doesn't sound like that.” Thébaud frowned, as if he was disappointed in the amateur nature of Domaine Beauclaire's theft. “Lead me to the cellar and I'll have a look, but if I were to guess right now, I'd say that your thief isn't a thief at all.”

Verlaque watched Marine hunched over his dining-room table, writing. She had been oddly silent all weekend, and this morning had joined her parents for Mass at 10:30 a.m., something he could never remember her doing. She said something about wanting to hear the new organ, but her voice didn't sound convincing, and as soon as she got home she had called Sylvie on her cell phone from Verlaque's bedroom, with the door closed. But that was not unusual—Sylvie must have a new boyfriend, he finally decided. He hoped.

“I'll make dinner,” he said, putting down his book.

“Pardon?”

“I said I'll make dinner tonight,” he repeated. “You have an early class tomorrow morning, right?”

Marine turned around to face him. “Yes, Mondays I start early. Thank you.”

“Is everything all right?” When he returned yesterday from the Palais de Justice, they had quickly dressed for a fiftieth-birthday party for one of Marine's colleagues and had not had the chance to speak before falling into bed, exhausted, at 2:00 a.m. That morning, while Marine was at Mass, Verlaque had slipped out to the market on the Place Richelme and bought figs, fresh chèvre, and bacon, which he planned to roast in the oven.

Marine nodded and then turned back around to her writing. “Yes, everything's fine. How are your cases going?”

“We're interviewing hospital personnel tomorrow,” Verlaque answered. “Those who were in and out of Mlle Montmory's room. And Mme d'Arras has gone missing again.”

“Christophe's aunt?”

“Yes. She's been gone since Friday afternoon.”

“
Mon dieu!
That's terrible. Do you have any leads?” she asked.

“No, not yet. I've put a young officer from Alsace in charge of the case, and he has sent her photograph and description out to hospitals, train stations, and so on.” Just then Verlaque's cell phone rang, and he saw the name of Jules Schoelcher on his phone's screen. “It's that officer from Alsace I was just talking about. Excuse me, Marine.”

Marine crossed her fingers for good luck and continued reading, but she couldn't concentrate. A few minutes later, Verlaque came back into the living room. “A bus driver recognized her photograph,” he said quickly.

“That's a good start.”

“That officer had the good sense to include a description of what she was wearing that day, including a big pink purse. The bus driver remembered the purse: A few months ago, he went into Longchamp on the Cours Mirabeau, looking for a present for his wife. He did a double take when he saw the prices and walked right out, but he remembered the pink purse.”

“Thank goodness for elderly fashion victims,” Marine said, pouring herself a glass of water. “So where did Mme d'Arras go?”

“Rognes.”

“Really?” For a minute Marine couldn't remember who had spoken of Rognes, but then remembered the bustling gray-haired Mme Joubert, arranging flowers in church.

“Officer Schoelcher is sending out a team to ask the villagers if they've seen her, but since it's Sunday that will be difficult—none of the shops will be open. The bus driver says that Mme d'Arras crossed the street and went into the
cave
cooperative, to buy wine for a friend. The bus driver remembered that the friend's name is Philomène. I've only ever seen that name in nineteenth-century novels.”

“Philomène? But it was my neighbor, Philomène Joubert, who spoke about Rognes yesterday. She grew up there.”

“How old is she?”

“My guess is between sixty-five and seventy-five.”

“So they could be friends. Could you talk to Mme Joubert? This afternoon, even?”

Marine set her glass down on the kitchen counter. “I'll go right now.” She was happy to leave the apartment and try to walk off her anxiety. Why she hadn't told Antoine about the lump—the “pea,” she secretly called it—she didn't know. Over the telephone, Sylvie had suggested reasons for Marine's silence: that Marine didn't want
to be weak, especially in front of Verlaque; that Marine was a martyr and preferred to suffer through this on her own; that Marine was avoiding facing her own
angoisse
by not telling Antoine…. But Marine didn't agree with Sylvie's ideas, except for the martyr one, which she didn't dare admit to. She had learned to trust her instincts, and her instincts had told her to keep it a secret just a little longer.

“Thank you for taking the time to talk to me,” Marine said.

“Oh, it was obvious that you have something on your mind,” Philomène Joubert said. “I'm good at reading faces.” She smiled kindly and poured Marine a cup of coffee. “What is it, dear?”

“It's Mme d'Arras,” Marine replied. “Pauline, your old friend.”

“
Ah bon?
”

“She's been missing since Friday afternoon.”

Mme Joubert made the sign of the cross.

“She took the bus to Rognes….”

“Rognes?” Mme Joubert said quickly. “That's where we grew up!”

“Yes, and she told the bus driver that she needed to buy wine for her friend…Philomène.”

“
Moi?
But that's crazy. We haven't had a meal together in years. Decades, even. I do see her around Aix from time to time, naturally.”

Marine nodded. She couldn't step out of her front door without running into someone she knew from the university, or her childhood, or from other social contacts. “So you didn't see each other on Friday?”

“No, of course not.” Mme Joubert pushed her coffee cup toward the middle of the table and crossed her thick, muscular arms. “But where could she be?
La pauvre!
”

“That's what the police, and M. d'Arras, would like to know. Do you have any ideas? Does she have family in Rognes?”

Mme Joubert shook her head. “No. Her sister Natalie lives here, in Aix, as does Natalie's son, Christophe. The third Aubanel daughter—they were beauties, they were—is a nun near Narbonne. A Carmelite.”

“M. d'Arras thinks that his wife has Alzheimer's, but she refuses to be tested. Is there something from her past that would make her want to return to Rognes?” Marine asked.

Mme Joubert stayed silent for a few seconds, looking at Marine. Then she leaned toward Marine and whispered, “Perhaps you should speak to her sister Natalie.”

“Christophe's mother?” Marine asked. “I know Christophe; in fact, I saw him on Friday night, at a party. He mentioned that Pauline d'Arras was phoning her sister—Christophe's mother—and upsetting her.”

Philomène Joubert sighed. “Poor Natalie. As if her life hasn't been hard enough. Pauline was always such a pest. I now know, looking back, that I played with Pauline because she was rich, and pretty. I was honored to have such a fancy friend. But later, when we were in our early teens, I learned not to trust her. We stopped seeing each other when I met my husband; I was eighteen.”

“What does Pauline say to Natalie that's so upsetting?” Marine asked. “Why has Natalie's life been difficult?”

Mme Joubert sat back. “Clothilde and Pauline Aubanel were beauties. Their most striking features were their white-blond hair and clear blue eyes, just like their mother's and father's. They were petite, and graceful, and we all wanted to be like them. They were like little dolls.”

“And Natalie?” Marine asked. “She wasn't like them, I take it.”

“Have you noticed your friend Christophe's hair?”

Marine nodded. “Jet black.”

“As is his mother's, and mine, before it went gray,” Philomène said, touching her head. “Natalie Chazeau has big brown eyes. And she's tall, and strong. I'm not saying she was fat, but she was a big girl, not at all what you'd call petite.”

“Mme Joubert, are you saying that Natalie had a different father?” Marine asked. “Siblings can look very different, even when born of the same mother and father.”

Mme Joubert again made the sign of the cross. “But we all knew that wasn't the case. Natalie was clearly her mother's favorite. I always thought it was because Natalie was the oldest child, but one day when I was home in bed with the flu, I overheard my mother speaking with a neighbor in our kitchen. The neighbor had lived in Paris during the war, working as a maid, and Mme Aubanel—her name was Francine Lignon at the time—was at the Sorbonne in Paris. It was before she came back to Rognes and married M. Aubanel, who had been her childhood sweetheart. They were to be married when they finished
lycée,
but Francine got cold feet. She broke off the engagement and moved to Paris to study after high school. That was in 1939, and then the war began….”