Murder in the Rue Dumas: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery (Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mysteries) (24 page)

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry…for all the times I’ve angered you, for all the times I’ve been so unclear, so indecisive. You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. That I’m sure of, I realized it today, in Paris. I was speaking to an old man, and he’s just lost his wife, and…”

Marine broke in. “Antoine, would you like a grappa? Because I sure would.”

Verlaque threw his head back and let out a roar of laughter. “Is the pope Polish?”

“I take that as a yes.” Marine walked into the kitchen and opened the freezer compartment in her refrigerator, taking out a long, thin, icy bottle.

“Isn’t that the grappa we bought last year in Liguria? You still have some left?”

Marine smiled. “I’ve been saving it for when my lover comes over to my apartment in the middle of the night and trips over his words, trying to tell me that he loves me.” Marine looked at Verlaque, finally relieved to have said the words that she had kept inside for so long. Well, this is it, she thought. He’ll either fess up right now, or run out of the door.

Verlaque stood with his back resting against the kitchen door for what seemed like an eternity staring at Marine, she would later tell Sylvie. He quickly moved toward her, pushing her against the refrigerator, wrapping his arms around her slender waist and putting his face in her hair. “My love, my love,” he whispered over and over. He kissed her lips, his mouth moist and soft, and then kissed her cheeks and forehead and neck. “I love you, Marine.” He took her head in his hands and looked at her, and kissed her on the mouth once again, running his hands up from her waist and over
her small breasts, then up to her cheeks. “I love you,” he repeated once more and then stepped back, looking at her.

“You just knocked over all my fridge magnets and Charlotte’s drawing,” Marine said. She leaned down to pick up the drawing, hiding her smile.

“Marine?”

She stood up, smiling, and grabbed Verlaque by the collar of his sweater, bringing him near her and kissing him. “I love you too, Antoine. Let’s not talk about this anymore for now, okay?”

She took the grappa bottle into her living room. Verlaque followed her, sat down on her sofa, and watched the freckled beauty as she opened an antique corner buffet and took out two small crystal shot glasses that were etched with dragonflies.

“I had forgotten about these glasses,” Verlaque said, leaning toward the coffee table to look at them, grateful for her elegance, grateful that she had not needed to hear, or say, more on the subject of love that evening. “See, you were everywhere with me today in Paris. That vase that broke in Moutte’s apartment was also engraved with dragonflies.”

“These were my grandmother’s,” Marine said, pouring the clear white alcohol into the glasses.

Marine sipped some grappa and winced. “I’ve forgotten that the first sip always burns, and then after that…smooth as silk.” She took another sip to test out her theory, and nodded.

Verlaque told her about their discoveries in Paris, that Moutte has displayed a vase that he knew was counterfeit, and how the doyen had definitely been to Umbria, even a glassblowing factory near Perugia.

“Let’s have a look,” Marine said. She walked over to her bookshelves and pulled out a shoe box full of maps. She spread out a map of central Italy on her coffee table and rested her elbows on
her thighs, looking down. “The lawyer told you that the town starts with an ‘F’? Let’s look as closely to Perugia as we can, since Rocchia grew up there. That’s where he would have all of his contacts, right?”

“He grew up in Perugia?”

“Yes, my mother is full of information these days.” She leaned over Verlaque and took a pencil off of the side table next to him. “By the way, she gave me a file for you, and I meant to give it to you that night I stormed off with Sylvie.”

“I’m sorry about what I said,” Verlaque said.

“I know; I’ll tell Sylvie. Let’s look at my mother’s file. Basically, it contains the Dumas’s bank statements.”

Marine opened the file and put the bank statements on the coffee table. “None of the professors, my mother included, have ever wanted to take responsibility for the fellowship, and so only recently did they discover that bit by bit someone has been taking out money.”

“Pardon?”

“In cash withdrawals, from the savings account.”

“Who?”

“Well, in the Law Department it’s only our head accountant who has this kind of authority,” Marine said. “But my mother told me that the Theology Department’s accountant retired two months ago, and they haven’t yet agreed on a replacement.”

Verlaque laughed. “And with all the unemployment in France!”

Marine bit her lip. “Well, tell me, who has banking privileges in
your
department?”

“Me, Roussel, and Mme Girard. So, someone was embezzling? Moutte? That could explain where he got the money for all that stuff and why he left all of his assets to the school, in particular for the fellowship.”

“I should think so! My mother also told me that Audrey Zacharie was flirting with the doyen during that party on Friday night. What do you think about that?”

Verlaque sipped some grappa and then said, “Mlle Zacharie was fiercely protective of that department, from all reports. Perhaps flirting with Moutte was just another way to have more control over her little empire on the fourth floor. What do you think? You’re a woman.”

“Mmm. What if…there really was counterfeiting going on, which was confirmed today, yesterday now, by that curator you visited. Audrey, since she did try to control what went on in the department, might have found out about it. Would she then try to blackmail Moutte? She’d have one on him, right? So the flirting at the party was just reminding him of that, of her new power over him.”

“Not bad. Wait a minute!” he said, pouring a tiny bit of grappa into Marine’s glass. “Audrey Zacharie did have a mysterious windfall recently, her boyfriend told me about it and I saw some of her shopping splurges in their apartment.”

“And if she was blackmailing Moutte and Rocchia, that would make Rocchia a suspect for her murder. Does he have an alibi for Monday night?” Marine asked.

“He was en route from San Remo the evening Mlle Zacharie was hit. And on the night of Moutte’s murder, he was at home in Perugia with his wife.”

“He could be lying. His marriage was one of convenience, my mother told me. And have you checked out the hotel in San Remo?”

Verlaque sipped some grappa and leaned back. “One of our officers was making phone calls today while we were in Paris. I’ll know first thing tomorrow morning. I think that Mlle Zacharie
came into the apartment to look for what the thief was looking for; and she then found us there,” Verlaque said. “She left in a hurry too, when Bruno and I were in another room.”

“What did she say she was doing there?”

“Looking for a grant application for one of the grad students.”

“That would be easy to check, wouldn’t it? Just ask the student. Speaking of students, I went to the symposium on Cluny today and heard some of the students give papers. Two of the boys, Yann and Thierry I think their names are, did very well. The female grad student just seemed to be tripping over her own feet the entire afternoon, and the fourth one…”

“Claude?”

“Yes, that’s him. Well, he was enraged! Anything anyone tried to say in favor of the Cluniac order just sent him into a tizzy! Really a weird kid. I guess he was just defending his mentor, but really…”

Verlaque finished his grappa. “Yeah, grad students always get too enthusiastic about what they’re studying, as if it’s the only way to look at a certain subject. He’ll calm down once he gets out into the real world.”

“That’s exactly what my mother said after the lecture.”

Verlaque feigned outrage at being compared to Florence Bonnet, and Marine laughed. She took Verlaque’s empty glass from his hands and stood up. “You look tired.”

Verlaque looked up at her. “I’m so tired I could fall asleep on this sofa, fully dressed.”

Marine reached out her arm and pulled Verlaque up. “Let’s go to bed then. Tomorrow’s another day.”

M
onique had come to Verlaque again in a dream. He bolted up and said, “You’re dead, Monique.” He was sweating and fell back onto the pillow, trying to slow down his breathing. He looked over at Marine, who was very still, both arms at her sides and her head tilted away from him, toward the window.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

Verlaque sat up again and threw off the covers. “Bad dream, sorry if I woke you. Would you like some coffee?” There was no way that he could now explain his past to Marine. He was determined that Monique was not going to jeopardize his relationship with Marine. Or was he just afraid? Taking the easy way out?

Marine turned her face toward his and rested her head on her right arm. “When have I ever refused coffee?”

“Right! Give me five seconds.” Verlaque walked into Marine’s bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He picked up his watch, which was sitting on the counter, and looked at the time. “
Merde
!” he hollered.

“What? Did we sleep in?” Marine called from the bedroom.

“Yes! It’s almost 9:00 a.m.!”

“
Merde
!”

“What time is your first class?”

“10:00!”

A cell phone began to ring and Verlaque ran back into the bedroom and picked his phone up from the bedside table. “
Oui.
”

“Sorry, sir. Paulik here. I just wanted to warn you before you come in this morning.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes. What’s going on, Bruno?”

“It’s Roussel. He’s on the warpath. Just brace yourself.”

“
Merde, merci.
” He hung up the phone and walked back into the bathroom and began brushing his teeth.

“Is my Montesquieu book in the bathroom?” Marine called from the living room. “I need it for today’s class.”

Verlaque looked at her bathroom counter, covered in a half dozen small jars of face creams; four lipsticks, each one with its cap off; a Chanel no. 19 perfume; a small volume of Rimbaud’s poetry; and finally, under a battered and wet
Elle
magazine, Montesquieu’s
Persian Letters
. “Found it!” he called out.

Verlaque looked at Marine as she walked into the bathroom and smiled. “Funny choice for a law class. But then your lectures are famous for that.” He tapped her head lightly with the book. “I’ll go make coffee. By the way, I put the lids back on your lipsticks for you.”

As Verlaque was pouring the coffee into two cups Marine walked into the kitchen. She was wearing wide-legged tweed pants with high-heeled boots and a crisp, tight-fitting white blouse with a long narrow green tie. “Good morning, Annie Hall,” he said as he handed her her morning drug. “It was one of my grandfather’s favorite books,” he continued, not able to take his eyes off of Marine.

“The
Persian Letters
? It was one of my grandfather’s favorites as well,” Marine answered, sipping her coffee. “‘I may have lived in servitude, but I have always been free.’ Poor Roxane. My grandfather loved that line in the book. I’m going to write it on the blackboard this morning and have the students write for twenty minutes or so a response to it…they could approach it from a number of different angles…the contrast between European and non-European societies, or the advantages and disadvantages of different systems of government…”

Verlaque broke in. “Or the nature of political authority, or even religious tolerance…didn’t Montesquieu marry a Protestant?”

“Heaven forbid,” Marine answered, smiling. The Verlaque ancestors had been Huguenots, and Emmeline, a devote Anglican.

“You’re right, it will make for a great discussion.” Verlaque smiled and put his hand through her thick auburn hair. “I wish you had been teaching in Bordeaux when I was a law student there.”

“Ah, then we wouldn’t be sleeping together.”

Verlaque smiled. “Montesquieu may have been bleak, but I always found those two Turks—what were their names?…”

“Usbek and Rica.”

“Thanks. I always thought they were quite funny, the way they misinterpret what they see.”

Marine held the book to her chest and said, “But still Roxane is enslaved, and commits suicide because of it. So I guess it’s bleak and funny at the same time.” She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand and added, “Sort of like your English poet,
non
?”

Verlaque and Marine parted on the rue d’Italie and Verlaque carried on up the rue Thiers, hoping he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. As the road curved he saw ahead of him a roadblock, and
for a few seconds thought perhaps the Palais de Justice was being roped off, but then remembered that it was Thursday, market day. Although he found the stands with their artfully displayed mountains of vegetables beautiful, zigzagging through the crowd was tiresome. Not today…all he could think of was Marine. He walked by one of his favorite sellers—a man who only sold what was local and in season—and today he had four piles of wild mushrooms sitting on his long wooden table: delicate little orange girolles; black trumpet mushrooms; pointy, pockmarked morels; and big fatty cèpes. Verlaque stopped at the stand and asked for two hundred grams of each of the mushrooms, which the vendor weighed and put into separate small paper bags. “Fry them with parsley and lemon, right?” Verlaque asked.