Death of a Chef (Capucine Culinary Mystery) (20 page)

CHAPTER 33

A
lexandre sat in the exact middle of his study, throned in an ancient leather armchair, holding
Le Figaro
at arm’s length and scowling. Clenching a three-inch cigar stub in his jaws, he snapped the newspaper to make it stand up stiffly at attention. Capucine and Jacques, sitting on the sofa opposite, waited for the detonation.

“Risen tezis tzby zat imbefil lusen wowon!”

Capucine got up and gently removed the cigar from his mouth and threw it into the fireplace. Alexandre glared at her malevolently.

When she sat down, Jacques said, “I do believe that was half of a Trinidad Robusto. They’re virtually impossible to obtain if your last name isn’t Castro. You’ve committed a serious faux pas, ma cousine. My heart’s going pitter-patter, thinking about the spanking you’re going to get.”

Alexandre glowered at him and gave the paper another shake. “Listen to this. It’s by that imbecile Lucien Folon.” Alexandre looked up at Capucine to make sure she had understood this time. She smiled sweetly at him. “He calls his piece ‘How Bright the Light Once the Bushel Removed. ’ ” Alexandre gave the paper another angry shake. Jacques settled into the sofa, preparing to enjoy himself.

“Now that Chef Prosper Ouvrard has been freed from the stifling yoke of the late, but hardly great Chef Jean-Louis Brault, the genius of his cuisine is blossoming. Freed to add protein to his palette, Ouvrard is creating dishes that are vibrant with life and passion, something never before seen at La Mère Denis.”

Alexandre paused, patted the arm of his chair for the ashtray, remembered it was empty, patted again for his glass, remembered that was empty, too, and, with a frown, resumed reading.

“It is high time for the hidebound cabal of critics, led by
Le Monde’
s bumptious Alexandre de Huguelet, notorious vassal of conventional wisdom, to admit that Chez La Mère Denis is now a bird of a completely different feather, a Phoenix risen from the ashes of banality.”

Loudly, Alexandre crumpled the newspaper into a ball and threw it in the corner. He got up and poured himself a finger of Scotch from a square cut-glass decanter nestled into a bookshelf.

Unexpectedly, Alexandre calmed. He smiled at Jacques.

“I’ll tell you what it’s high time for. It’s time for me to retreat to my ovens and cook dinner for you two. Trust me, it’s going to be entirely vegetarian,” he said acidly. “But don’t get your hopes up. Amateur hack that I am, the recipes are from those little cards in
Elle
magazine.” He left, shutting the door very gently behind him.

Capucine was torn. Alexandre didn’t seem hurt, but she knew how sensitive he could be. Of course, a healthy dash of solitude, judiciously seasoned with the herbs and spices of his kitchen, would make the most potent salve. But she still felt guilty not being at his side.

Jacques went over to the bookcase and filled his glass with a good two fingers from Alexandre’s decanter. He sniffed appreciatively. “This Yamazaki single malt eventually becomes addictive. Whatever the right-wing press might say about your geriatric gastronome, it’s incontrovertible he has excellent taste in whiskey.”

Capucine pouted, expecting the other shoe to drop. Jacques’s faint praise of Alexandre was invariably accompanied by a barb, usually relating to his ostensible amorous insufficiencies due to his being on the far side of forty. But Jacques said nothing. He sipped his whiskey and examined Alexandre’s books, tapping a spine every now and then, either in approval or dismay. It dawned on Capucine that he was stalling about telling her something.

Jacques picked another glass off the tray, put an inch of whiskey in it, and handed it to Capucine, placing his foot, shod in a navy-blue Weston alligator loafer, on the arm of the sofa. He took a deep breath.

Capucine sniffed at the single malt and wrinkled her nose. “How can you two drink this stuff?” She left the room and returned almost immediately with a glass bowl filled with ice and put a handful in her glass.

“If Alexandre sees that, you really
are
going to get a spanking.” Jacques brayed his donkey laugh, and most of his confidence returned. “Your name came up again this morning in our executive meeting.”

Capucine looked at him quizzically. It was like playing What’s Wrong with This Picture? Several things: Jacques wasn’t masking the sanctity he felt for the DGSE with levity. It was also the first time he had made this sort of pronouncement without some form of cover against bugging. But most amazingly, he seemed almost embarrassed. Yes, that was definitely it. He was really embarrassed. Would wonders never cease?

“In a word, cousine, the powers on high are skittish—
concerned
is too strong a term—about this kidnapping of Brissac-Vanté.”

“Because of the president’s ex-wife’s friendship with his wife?”

“Pas du tout. They don’t give a toss about that. They’re in a pet that the investigation will prize open the Pandora’s box of your Roque case.”

Capucine took a sip of the single malt. Even chilled to the freezing point, it tasted like unwashed socks soaked in rubbing alcohol, with three drops of iodine thrown in for good measure. She set the glass back on the table with a grimace.

“They are troubled that Commissaire Jérôme Lacroix is involved,” Jacques added.

“Why? He’s extremely competent and zealous.”

“Two very dangerous virtues. And, in addition, he has the reputation of being as independent as a deerhound, and it is known he’ll be retired in four months. Once he has his pension in hand, he can’t be pressured. The concern is that he just might turn into a loose cannon.”

Jacques searched Capucine’s face for a reaction. She looked back at him expressionlessly.

“One of the ideas aired this morning was that the case be removed from the hands of the PJ and handed to the DGSE. Of course, everyone in the room was opposed. In the end it was decided that Lacroix would be kept on but you would be put in charge. That decision will be communicated to the PJ hierarchy. He’s to communicate his findings only to you. Voilà, a significant field promotion for my little cousin.”

Capucine’s face flattened, and her eyes darkened. “Why me? Because I’m too docile to be a loose cannon? Because they think I’m going to do what you all tell me to do? Because I’m your cousin and that makes me automatically a government toady? Well, fuck you, and fuck your government! I’m resigning in the morning.” Trembling with rage, Capucine picked up her glass, drained it, and threw the thick crystal against a wall. It exploded like a mortar burst.

The door opened, and Alexandre peered in.

“Don’t worry. It was empty,” Jacques said with his all-knowing Cheshire cat grin.

“Good. Dinner’s ready. We’re eating in the kitchen.”

Capucine walked down the hall with her head on Alexandre’s shoulder.

The dinner was delectable. It turned out that the tear-out cards in
Elle
had come from a piece about Alain Passard, and the recipes had been considerably simplified for the general public. Alexandre had called one of his pals in Passard’s kitchen and had recovered the missing ingredients. The first course was a carpaccio of celery root, sliced paper thin with a mandoline and then sautéed in an obscene amount of butter, a spoonful of Orléans mustard, and a good number of spices and herbs, the precise identification of which, Alexandre explained, he had sworn to take to the grave with him. All Capucine knew was that it was sublime and there was plenty of tarragon in the sauce. Her mood lifted.

Aware that something had been discussed in the study that needed to be forgotten, Alexandre drew them into his own world.

“Of course, Lucien Folon is not entirely wrong. Brault’s cooking was often like celestial cotton candy—light, ethereal, but evanescent. Once swallowed, it was gone, like a dream that is instantly forgotten the moment the dreamer wakes, knowing only that he
has
dreamed, but having no recollection of what the dream consisted of.”

“You mean like making love to those deliciously androgynous boys in the lycée? So sweet to the touch but with absolutely no substance. You were always left hungry and unfulfilled.” She gave Alexandre a womanly look to make sure he knew how things had changed for the better.

Jacques erupted in laughter: clear, tinkling, honest mirth, with not a trace of donkey or cynicism. Capucine couldn’t remember him ever having laughed with such abandon.

The next course was something Alexandre called a potato “darphin,” which turned out to be a potato pancake made from long, thin needles of potato, crisp and crunchy with finely chopped sage on the outside and soft and starchy on the inside. It was served with an endive and celery salad sprinkled with shavings of parmesan and a lemony vinaigrette. It was so good, they were speechless for nearly a minute.

As Capucine ate, all she could think of was how perfectly informed the DGSE was of the workings of the police. She looked around the kitchen. There must be miniature microphones and video cameras hiding like roaches in all the cracks of the woodwork.

The pièce de résistance was the dessert, a delicate avocado soufflé studded with chunks of Valrhona chocolate, baked in the emptied half shells of the avocado.

Jacques left around eleven. As she watched him ride down in the elevator, Capucine decided she would put on a special show that night for the DGSE cams and see how many junior operatives she could corrupt in one go.

CHAPTER 34

“I
have a Madame de Vulpillières on the line,” the uniformed front desk receptionist said. “Do you want to take the call?”

“
Oui, madame, je vous écoute.
Yes, madame, I’m listening,” Capucine said.

“We have a common friend,” a youngish female voice said with a Sixteenth Arrondissement lockjaw drawl so pronounced, Capucine thought it must be put on. For half a second she thought Jacques had put one of his pals up to playing a practical joke.

“Our mutual friend wants to give you something. But extreme care has to be taken. Come to La Coupole tonight at eight thirty, and you will receive instructions. It would look more natural if you came with your husband.”

With the accent and the corny 1930s thriller dialogue, this definitely had to be a joke.

“Will you be there?” The timbre had gone up a notch. The throat was clearly dry and constricted. The woman was obviously in the grips of emotion. And there was definitely no snickering in the background.

“
D’accord.
I’ll be there.” Capucine hung up.

She pulled her keyboard over, logged in to the police database, and punched in “de Vulpillières.” Five came up, but only one in Paris. A couple, Bertrand and Sidonie, thirty-seven and thirty-two, seventeen rue de la Faisanderie in the Sixteenth. Monsieur worked for the BNP Parisbasas, and Madame with a relocation agency specializing in easing the moves of foreign senior executives to Paris. They had three outstanding parking violations and were about to be audited for their tax return three years prior. But they didn’t know about that yet.

 

La Coupole had been a hot spot in the roaring twenties, when Montparnasse was the center of Paris nightlife. Nowadays the restaurant was owned by a chain and catered mainly to well-heeled tourists. But the train station–sized Art Deco room had been restored to its original grandeur, and the fillet béarnaise with frites was probably as good as any in Paris.

In keeping with the police precept that it was always essential to use more troops than could possibly be needed, Capucine had stationed Isabelle at a table in a corner of the room and Momo at the bar. She and Alexandre had been shown to a table at the end of a long avenue of high-backed leather banquettes. The din in the cavernous tiled dining room was deafening. Even though Capucine and Alexandre sat side by side on the banquette, they had to yell to make themselves understood.

“The great thing about the chain that owns this place is that they don’t attempt to cook above their ability. They let the décor do the work for them,” Alexandre said loudly.

Capucine’s eyes roamed the room, but the backs of the banquettes were so high that all she could see was the forest of bright green pillars decorated in 1920s motifs and the people down their row of tables.

“Fricassee of Bresse chicken, skate in burnished butter—the great classics. Who could go wrong ordering those?” Alexandre said.

Fifty feet away, on their side of the row of banquettes, a woman leaned forward, her face visible for only a nanosecond as she peeped out from behind the screen of the man sitting next to her. Yolande Brissac-Vanté. Her body motion was a more reliable signature than the glimpse of her profile.

“
Cœur de filet de bœuf au poivre.
They’ll flambé the thing in cognac right at our table. I’ve never been all that fond of those crunchy peppercorns, but let’s have it, anyway. It’ll be fun, and it’s a perfect meal for a place like this. And their
pommes soufflés
will probably be quite decent.”

“Not really the sort of thing you want to order on a stakeout.” Capucine muttered, keeping Yolande’s table in close scrutiny out of the corner of her eye.

Grumbling, Alexandre ordered the filet béarnaise for himself and the skate for Capucine. When they arrived, both dishes were beyond satisfactory, perfectly cooked, sauces above reproach.

Halfway through their meal, a woman with the robustness of a boarding-school field hockey player strode purposefully down the aisle, her heels clicking over the hubbub. She held a bright orange Hédiard bag by its string handles, keeping it as far away from her body as possible.

With a determined smile, she held her hand out to Capucine. “Madame Le Tellier?” she asked. “I’m Sidonie de Vulpillières. We spoke this morning on the telephone.”

“Of course.” Capucine took her hand. It was dry, strong, masculine.

With obvious distaste, the woman placed the bag on the table. Diners in the immediate vicinity looked on with sympathetic interest.
A gift from the famous luxury
épicerie.
How nice. I wonder what it’s going to be?

Without another word, the woman turned on her heel and marched back down the long lane between the banquettes. Capucine caught sight of Yolande nervously peeping out from behind the cover of her companion.

Capucine tipped the mouth of the bag toward her.

“I’m guessing this is not going to be their famous fruit squares, is it?” Alexandre said.

The bag contained a monogrammed note card tucked into the ribbons of a brown Hédiard box. Capucine removed the card, which contained four lines in a looping, round girlish hand.

Capucine removed the box with her fingertips and pulled gently on one end of the bow. The knot undone, the ribbon fell away. Capucine lifted the top with her fork. Inside was a small self-sealing kitchen bag that contained what looked like a good-size mushroom cap.

Alexandre wrinkled his nose. The bag had been improperly closed and emanated a distinct whiff of charnel house. The couple at the next table frowned at them.

“It’s a Chinese delicacy,” Alexandre said with a toothy smile. “Actually, we’re a tiny bit doubtful about it ourselves.”

Capucine put the lid back on the box, returned it to the bag, stood up, and walked to the door of the restaurant. Isabelle rushed up to her. After a whispered conversation Isabelle left the restaurant in a rush with the bag.

As they waited at the cashier’s desk for Alexandre’s card to go through, Capucine whispered in Alexandre’s ear, “Was that what I think it was?”

“Absolutely. An ear. I’ve cooked too many pigs’ ears not to know one. But no animal I know has an ear that small. I’m guessing it’s a human’s.”