Death of a Chef (Capucine Culinary Mystery) (12 page)

CHAPTER 19

E
ven though she had more than half expected something of the kind, the directness of Challoneau’s announcement had been a bolt. Without thinking, she dialed Capitaine de Crébillon’s cell phone. He didn’t pick up until nearly the end of the fifth ring. In the background Capucine could hear people laughing and the chiming of silverware on plates. Too late, she realized that she must be pulling Crébillon away from a dinner party, no doubt an egregious offense in his universe.

“What a joy to hear your voice, Madame le Commissaire.”

“Capitaine, can I abuse your indulgence once again and request yet another favor? I’m afraid it’s rather an important one.” It had become obvious that the courtly approach was the one that worked best with Crébillon.

“Madame, what man could have any aspiration in life other than enhancing your happiness? How may I be of service?”

“I wonder if you could call Madame Roque and ask her one or two questions for me.”

Even through the insubstantial cell phone Capucine could feel the chill. There was a long pause. Finally Crébillon said, “Of course, madame. I suppose it’s not too late in the evening to make a call. What would you like me to ask her?” A flat tone had replaced the courtly melody in his voice. Capucine explained what she wanted.

As she waited for Crébillon to call her back, she became increasingly aware of the enormity of her imposition on him. She was amazed that he had even taken the call. The news that Roque’s death was murder was going to be an embarrassment to the conservative administration. The press would jump at the chance of insinuating that the murder was a political act guided by the spectral hand of the government. It was precisely the sort of case where the police would be damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. Careers had been blighted by far less.

Her phone rang. In a dry tone Crébillon told Capucine that Madame Roque had been at home and had been quite happy to answer his questions. She had never seen a puddle on the basement floor before. It was definitely odd, because there were no pipes anywhere near the fuse box. Also, she had noticed that there was a big plastic pitcher on the counter of the basement sink that had beads of water in the bottom. She found this particularly odd since the pitcher was kept under the sink and she never used it.

“Voilà, Commissaire, I trust your curiosity is satisfied. Now, I really must say I think we would both be well advised to drop this matter. Don’t you agr—”

Capucine hardly listened. The only thing that now mattered was to get forensics into that basement and fingerprint everything as fast as possible.

Capucine stared at the dead phone in her hand with no recollection of having made her adieus to Crébillon. She hoped she had been as grateful as
politesse
required. But even if she hadn’t, her short reverie had been worth it. She had defined her course of action.

“So you’re absolutely convinced it was murder?”
Contrôleur Général
Tallon said with a slightly sardonic grin the next morning. Even though he was now in the stratosphere of the Police Judiciaire hierarchy, Tallon, who had been in charge of Capucine’s first homicide case, continued to act as her mentor.

“Of course it is, sir. The evidence is conclusive. We need to get the INPS out there right away, while there’s still something to be found.”

“
N’ayez pas de zèle
, Commissaire, as Talleyrand liked to say. Don’t be zealous. You’ve opened up a very nasty can of worms here. Far more nasty than I suspect you realize. Let me deal with it. I’ll call you this evening.”

When the call came, Tallon said nothing other than to invite her to lunch the next day.

They sat side by side on the cracked leather banquette facing the door at the end of the front room of Le Vieux Bistrot. Tucked under the shadow of Notre Dame Cathedral, over the years the restaurant had been carefully maintained to retain its dusty, between-the-wars feel. Capucine nibbled at a dish of a dozen quail eggs fried sunny-side up in country butter, tiny clumps of bright red smoked paprika and specks of brilliant green chives making pointillist dots on the white, tan, and dark yellow background of the eggs. Tallon dug large hunks out of an enormous
pavé de bœuf,
a two-inch-thick fillet steak covered in bone marrow, which had been brought to the table in an aluminum-foil papillote. Neither of them spoke.

Halfway through his steak Tallon put his fork down. “The worms in the can were a good deal nastier than I suspected. There was a meeting this morning at the Ministry of the Interior. Suffice it to say, it was held at the Hôtel de Beauvau so it would be more convenient for the minister to pop in.” With a frown, he picked up his fork and cut a piece of pavé.

Several bites later he resumed his narrative. “As you can imagine, there was no joy in the room. In the end it was decided that the PJ was to investigate the, ah, situation. Under my direct supervision. Of course, I’ll appoint you to take charge of the day-to-day work.”

A Château Beychevelle had been served in almost comically oversized stemmed glasses. Tallon rotated the base of his glass on the table with two fingers of his hand, making the liquid spiral up higher and higher in the glass. He was very angry about something.

“There is to be a press conference. Facts and photos will be put on display, but the intended message will only be hinted at. No more than the slight murmur whispering through the long grass of evidence. A suggestion will be planted that there is a possibility the murder was a domestic incident revolving around a mistress.”

Tallon’s frown intensified, and he puckered his lips. It looked like he wanted to spit in his glass. The plan was beyond Machiavellian, a perfect win-win for the government. Roche would be discredited by the breath of scandal, and the right wing would be absolved of any suspicion of harboring a lunatic fringe capable of a political murder. That Madame Roque would be devastated and might even be stigmatized as a suspect was of no concern.

Capucine gripped the long, thin stem of her glass so hard, it snapped. A waiter rushed up to give her a new one and pour more wine.

“I sent the INPS out there this morning. No useful prints were found, but the back door had been jimmied open, probably with a credit card. The marks in the wood were fresh. They have also identified the conductive substance on the fuse—a gel made by a company called Slendertone for some sort of machine that uses an electronic current to contract muscles to make women thinner.” Tallon shook his head in disbelief. “Not surprisingly, Madame Roque doesn’t possess such a machine. And they’re American, relatively rare in France.”

“So what do we do?”

“We follow orders. We hold their goddamn press conference. We supply what’s wanted—a very high-level conversation with the press where the message is delivered in subtext,” Tallon said sarcastically, looking at Capucine with hard eyes. “Oh, yes, one other thing,” he said from the depths of his enormous wineglass as he took a deep sip. “Your name did not come up at this meeting.”

That meant that Tallon had covered for her, absolving her of the unauthorized involvement of the gendarmerie and the INPS. Capucine’s cheeks burned.

 

When it was all over, Capucine was gratified that it had been Isabelle who had saved the day. Isabelle’s track record at press conferences was so dismal, Capucine had been half tempted to bring David back for the event. After all, he was the past master at dealing with the press, and he was only a few hours away on the high-speed TGV. But in the end she had decided against it.

The press conference was held in a large salon in the Hôtel de Beauvau, soothing with its delicately carved paneling gleaming with gold leaf and its French windows overlooking an autumn-tinted five-acre formal garden. One of the minister’s cabinet members kicked off the conference and quickly handed it over to Tallon, who came across as the perfectly gruff, ruthlessly efficient senior police officer, which was exactly what he was. The bulk of the presentation was made by Capucine, who, after she introduced her as leader of the investigative team, had relegated Isabelle to the task of hitting the
ENTER
key on the laptop to advance the PowerPoint screens.

Isabelle, even though her back was to the audience, was nonetheless cataleptic with stage fright. In the past she had systematically frozen up during press conferences, taken it out in anger at the journalists, and invariably had to be bailed out by David’s charm.

The public relations department of the Police Judiciaire had also outdone themselves. Normally incapable of nuance, they had elected to convey their poisonous message through innuendo. Three screens from the end, a police psychologist was quoted as stating that as a true hero of French history, Roque was a man of heroic appetites, a fact that might have some bearing on the case. The allusion was plain enough, but not so plain it could be used as fuel for a newspaper story. It was obvious the PR department intended the inference to be given arms and legs during the question-and-answer period after the presentation.

Capucine had rushed through the offensive page as quickly as possible and had lingered over the subsequent one, a list of next steps so inflated, it bordered on complete fiction.

A door in the back of the room opened, and the minister slipped in, made for the raised dais, and sat next to his cabinet member and Tallon. The press reacted as if an electric current had been applied. A minister was real news.

Sensing the change in mood of the audience, Isabelle quivered, sure she should do something but with no idea what it might be. In order to prevent her from making one of her press-conference gaffs, Capucine made an impatient gesture at the laptop, indicating Isabelle should keep going with the presentation. Confused, Isabelle grabbed the pile of press kits next to the computer and stood up. Everyone in the room assumed the conference had come to an end. One of the reporters raised his hand to ask a question.

With as much deference as she could muster, Capucine walked over to the minister and suggested he say a few closing words.

The minister perked up like a trained bird dog, strode to the podium, and, in a resonating, authoritative voice, proclaimed thirty seconds of substanceless platitudes to the effect that the police, as agents of his ministry, would leave no stone—absolutely no stone at all—unturned to apprehend the vile miscreant, ensure that justice was served, and continue to keep France the safest country in the world.

Fully aware that he was about to be barraged with questions, the minister made an imperious gesture with his hand, indicating that the press kits were to be handed out. Capucine snatched the pile from Isabelle and walked out into the middle of the floor. The journalists clustered tightly around her like chickens clucking for their feed, anxious not to be left out of the distribution.

While the press was distracted, the minister disappeared through a small door in the paneling. A few seconds later, the cabinet advisor followed and held the door open for Tallon, who squinched his eyebrows together, pursed his lips in a moue, nodded at Capucine, and joined the other two, no doubt for another high-level meeting. Capucine assumed Tallon’s equivocal expression was some form of approval, but it brought her no joy. She felt sweaty, debased, and demoralized.

She decided to take the afternoon off and soak in a tub full of Guerlain’s Shalimar Bain Moussant. That might get rid of the slimy feeling, but she also needed something to take away the bad taste in her mouth. A large glass of vodka with a big handful of ice cubes might just do the trick. Yes, a quarter bottle of tooth-cracking cold vodka and an afternoon-long soak just might tide her over until Alexandre came home to provide his solace.

CHAPTER 20

“M
adame,” David said, “your
fougasse
is a work of art. I used to think the fougasse of my village’s
boulangerie
was the best in the world, but compared to yours, it’s no better than fast-food pizza.” David thought he might have gone too far, but Angèle Folon swelled visibly at the flattery. She smiled at him, propped her head up on her hand, and inserted the tip of her pinkie between her full lips. Encouraged, he continued. “Seriously, your fougasse is a poem written in dough. The slashes sculpt the windswept branches of a maritime pine, the virgin olive oil gives it the luster of a monkfish fresh from the sea, and it’s punctuated with commas of black olive slivers and periods of wild herbs collected in the hills. In a word, your fougasse is as delectable as you are.”

Angèle thrummed and ran her tongue over her lips. Even though David had no doubt she had put on more than a pound or two since the birth of her children, her sexual magnetism remained vibrant.

“Are all the Cannois as gallant as you are?” she asked coquettishly, pivoting her body into a three-quarter profile, putting her ample bosom to its best advantage.

“Madame, I’m sure your charms make all men gallant.”

She rewarded David with a broad smile. “In the village they say you’re an author writing a biography about poor Jean-Lu. I knew him very well when he was a boy. He was my son’s best friend. He was very close to our whole family. My husband adored him.”

“Really, madame? I had no idea. If you could find the time, any stories you could tell me about Chef Brault when he was a child would be invaluable. That’s exactly the sort of thing I need to give my book color and depth.”

“I can tell you plenty,” she said from behind slightly lowered eyelids.

The noon Angelus slowly clanged out its hollow notes.

“I’m going to close the boulangerie for lunch. Why don’t you stay and have a bite with me? I can promise you a
fougasse aux lardons et au vieux Comté—
you know, stuffed with bacon and aged Comté cheese—that’s
really
going to get you going.” As an afterthought she made a moue, forcing her lips into a perfect circle. “My husband will be sound asleep. Bakers never get up before five in the afternoon.”

Angèle shot the bolt in the door, turned the little sign hanging from a suction cup in the glass panel so it read Fermé in an elaborate calligraphic script, and pulled down a green shade decisively. David felt slightly trapped.

“Voilà. We’re on our own. No interruptions for two hours.”

She led David into the kitchen, put two glasses on the table, and produced a bottle of almost pink wine from the refrigerator.
Château Pradeaux, one of the cheaper rosés of Bandol, but pleasant enough when sipped in the baking sun on a café terrace,
David told himself.

The cheese and bacon fougasse more than lived up to its promise. Between the wine and the olivy, spicy pastry David floated on a cloud of home love. With an effort he hauled himself back. He had a job to do, after all. He needed to retain control of the conversation.

Scrabbling for a topic, he said, “Your husband has no trouble sleeping all day?”

Angèle misunderstood. She stared at him with an enigmatic smile and put a shapely finger across her lips.

“We have nothing at all to worry about. You could shoot off a cannon down here, and he wouldn’t notice.” Her smile morphed into the merest hint of a leer to make sure the double entendre was not lost on him.

Angèle cut David a second piece of fougasse. As she put it on his plate, her arm brushed his. David pretended not to notice. She sipped her rosé and watched him eat, her eyes not leaving his face.

“You said your husband was close to Jean-Louis Brault when he was a child.”

“That he was. I always thought it was because both of them were estrangers in the village they lived in. My husband was a creature of the night, and the Brault family members were the village freaks.” She paused, brought to earth by her memories. “But actually, in a way, it was that Jean-Lu was the son my husband always wanted to have.”

“But you have a son, don’t you?”

“Lucien. He was a difficult child. Moody and unhappy. Very mocking and sarcastic with everybody. The other children in the village didn’t like him. Jean-Lu was his only friend.” Her eyes lost their focus as she stared down the road into the past. “It’s funny. My husband was convinced Lucien didn’t like food. He hated everything we made in the bakery. But you never know what your children will become, do you? Lucien wound up as a food critic for a newspaper in Paris. Can you imagine that?

“Jean-Lu was just the opposite. He loved everything that had to do with cooking. He’d stay late after dinner so he could see my husband make the dough and shape his loaves. Sometimes he came back in the morning, before school, and watched us make the fougasse. He was the perfect little boy. Often he would bring a crate of his father’s vegetables and make dishes with them for our dinner. Even when he was ten, he made the best
tian
I’ve ever eaten before or since—sliced zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes on a bed of onion and garlic, topped with wild herbs and chopped olives, sprinkled with a trickle of olive oil, and baked in the oven for half an hour.” She smiled at the wall. “Even at that age he had a feeling for herbs I’ll never have.

“Of course Jean-Lu got his love for vegetables from his father. The baron was just as cracked about his vegetables as he was about everything else,” she said, returning her gaze to David. “He had these crazy theories. He wouldn’t let his boys pee outside so he could treat his vegetables with what they left in their chamber pots. It worked, though. His zucchinis were by far the largest in the village. My daughter Fanny wouldn’t touch them until they were washed and cooked, and she was a girl that size never frightened.” She chuckled and gave David a sideways glance. David smiled back with wide-eyed innocence, ostensibly oblivious to the decidedly un-motherly double entendre.

“Fanny was Jean-Lu’s favorite in our family. He loved to follow her around the house when he came over. Girls that age usually have no patience for twelve-year-old boys, but she was very fond of Jean-Lu. Fanny had no time for Lucien. They were always fighting, but she always had a little kiss for Jean-Lu. I think it was because she felt sorry for him with no mother and being brought up by that cracked father and juvenile-delinquent brother. Every time Fanny said something nice to Jean-Lu, Lucien would pout. It was adorable.”

“Fanny left the village?”

“Oh, yes. She really had to.” Angèle stopped awkwardly. Before David could ask the obvious question, she continued on in a rush. “She has her own boulangerie now in Cassis. I got her a job working with a boulanger there, and his son had muscles that still keep me awake at night thinking about them, so one thing led to another, as you can imagine, and they got married.” She paused to catch her breath. “They have seven children and four grandchildren. Fanny runs the boulangerie now. Her fougasse is not as good as mine, but almost. So you see, everything worked out for the best,” she said with an air of finality.

The sparkle had gone out of the mood. Angèle got up and put their dishes loudly in the sink. She smiled politely at David.

“I have to open up again in twenty minutes. But please come back. I’d love to . . . well, you know, talk some more.” This was said with a suggestive smile that seemed to require a bit of an effort. David suspected the innuendo was intended to take his mind off the dialogue.