Murder on the Mediterranean (Capucine Culinary Mystery) (23 page)

Garbe nodded encouragingly.

“So when I go up on the bow, I notice that the screen is pulled across the hatch into Nathalie’s cabin. In the daytime. That’s not normal. I wonder why. I try to open the hatch to have a look. But it’s locked from inside. My first thought is that she’s having a nap and I might join her.”

Serge looked at Garbe with pleading eyes.

“You know, I thought it would be a lot more fun to spend dinnertime with her than in a restaurant, eating bad pizza. Who wouldn’t, right?”

“Of course. Any man would.”

“So I knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again. After about three times I thought something was wrong and I really started pounding. I guess I was getting pissed off, too. So I say real loud, ‘I’m going to get a screwdriver and open this thing.’ See, there is a little screwdriver slot in the lock so you can open it from the outside. But I hear, ‘No. Go away. I’m tired, and I want to sleep. Just let me be.’

“As I’m about to go, I think I hear whispering down there. I’m about to get seriously pissed off, but then I think, ‘No, she’s a little fucked up maybe, but she’s a good kid at heart, and nobody would be stupid enough to screw two guys on the same boat.’ I go up the stairs to the old town, but all the while I’m thinking and thinking. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. And when we all get back on the boat, Nathalie keeps avoiding me. She won’t even look at me. Like I’d done something bad to her.”

He stopped short.

“Look, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You don’t have a case here. I should just let my lawyer deal with the court.”

“Look, my friend, let me tell you why you’re telling me what you have to tell me. It’s because you’re not dumb. Commissaire Le Tellier is right. All she has to do is write up what she’s got, take it to the juge d’instruction, and you’d find yourself in La Santé Prison, where you’d never get out. The only way you’d ever see the sky again is from the inside of a little exercise cage they have there in the courtyard, where you get to walk in little circles for half an hour a day.”

Garbe paused for nearly fifteen seconds to let this sink in.

“But I like you. You seem to be a regular guy. I’d like to get my elbows up on a bar with you someday and have a beer or two.”

Garbe paused again. There was no doubt his sense of timing was impeccable.

“In France we understand love. Judges understand love. You were legitimately enraged at this bitch. I can see why you wanted to slap her around. The bitch deserved it. So she fell overboard. The judge is probably going to see that as an accident.”

Capucine was sure that Serge was never going to fall for a ruse so simple a child would see through it. But Garbe knew his business.

Serge put his face in his hands, the infallible sign that the suspect was about to confess. He wanted to confess. He needed to confess. He desperately wanted to reach out to someone and be helped, but he was still lacking the final quarter of an ounce of courage to do it.

Garbe put his large liver-spotted hand on Serge’s shoulder.

“
Allez, vieux.
Come on, old boy. Let’s get you out of this mess.”

Serge sat up straight on the little stool and turned to face Garbe.

“It wasn’t like that at all. I had to talk to her. I wasn’t going to spend the next two weeks on a boat with someone who’d turn her back every time she saw me. Especially if it was a really hot girl I actually liked a lot. Do you understand?”

Serge looked pleadingly into Garbe’s eyes to see if he was getting it.

Garbe nodded like an uncle.

“So what I did was to slide out of the little Plexiglas hatch in my cabin that night. It’s an incredibly tight fit, and at one point I thought I’d got stuck, because I had my foulie pants on. So I pulled off the suspenders and wriggled out of the pants. Good thing I didn’t have my jeans on under the foulies, or I’d probably still be stuck in that hatch.” Serge laughed and quickly sobered. “That would probably be more fun than sitting here, though.” He paused again, thought it over. “So, on deck I went forward and sat down with my back against the mast. I knew I’d be invisible there—it was a really dark night—and sooner or later Nathalie would come up to the bow to take a pee. I guess I must have fallen asleep—or passed out, probably. I’d had a hell of a lot to drink, I was so upset.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“And then I got woken up by the rain. There weren’t many drops, but they were so big, they almost hurt. And then there was this little flicker of lightning on the horizon, and I saw Nathalie. She was in a big hurry, ripping off her foulie jacket and climbing up on the bow pulpit like a monkey. Then she’s hanging on to the forestay with one hand and pulling down her foulie pants with the other.”

He stopped and smirked conspiratorially at Garbe. “Don’t get me wrong, but it was quite a view in the flashes of lightning. She looked really hot like that, with her legs spread open while she was hanging way out over the bow of the boat.”

Garbe leered back at him, man-to-man. “So what’d you do?”

“Nothing for a moment. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure what she was up to. Your average girl just sort of squats down and pees over the side. I figured maybe she was going to take a dump, but why wouldn’t she use one of the heads below? So, anyway, nothing happens and she’s kind of moaning up there, so I go up to her to see if she’s okay.

“ ‘Get the hell away from me,’ she says in this little voice when she recognizes me, and I say, ‘Nathalie, we really need to talk. I like you a lot, and I have this feeling that I’ve annoyed you somehow.’

“And she gets really pissed off at me. I mean,
really
put out. She starts telling me I’m such a loser, I can’t even see she’s in serious pain. So I get in close and ask her what’s wrong.

“ ‘Just go away,’ she says, and I ask her if she want me to get her meds. Then she gets really nasty and starts saying things like, ‘Loser, get the fuck away from me,’ and stuff like that.”

Serge was reliving the scene, his face contorted in anguish.

“So like an idiot, I keep trying to help her, you know, asking what’s wrong and things like that. It was then that she said it. She goes, ‘You fucking loser, when you were banging on my hatch like a total asshole this afternoon, I was getting boned by a guy. We were both trying so hard not to laugh, I thought we’d explode.’

“I didn’t get it. So she goes on. ‘And to get me to quiet down, this guy rolls me off the bunk onto the spinnaker bag and pushes my face into it. And when he’s got me half suffocated, he slides his bone up my ass. How do you like that, loser? While you’re up there, knocking on the hatch like a little kid, this guy is butt fucking me. And he was pretty good at it, too. But he had a load like a horse, and now I’ve got a serious case of the runs. So just get out of here and let me take my crap.’

“It was at that point that I went berserk. I grabbed her ankles and started shaking her back and forth. She went crazy, too, and leaned forward to hit me, but all she managed to do was grab my amulet. I pushed her legs to get her off of me, and she went into the sea. Just like that.”

He paused and looked down at the tabletop for several long beats.

“It was an accident, I guess. I honestly don’t know what I was trying to do. It just happened. That was all.”

Capucine came up to the table. He looked up at her with innocent, childlike eyes.

“What’s going to happen to me, Capucine?”

“I
congratulate you on your arrest of Serge. An absolutely brilliant deduction,” Inès said over Capucine’s office telephone.

“It wasn’t exactly a deduc—”

“Actually, I was calling to invite you to dinner. To celebrate. Could you free yourself tonight? There’s a wonderful restaurant around the corner from my apartment in the Fifteenth. It’s where I take myself when I feel I deserve a reward.”

Capucine demurred—she had planned on attending a restaurant opening bash with Alexandre—but acquiesced in the end. This was so unlike Inès, something had to be up.

The restaurant was fifties-style Japanese, so far off the beaten track that Capucine and Inès were the only customers. The walls were covered with looming black- and gold-foil wallpaper. A large fish tank in the middle of the room contained a single lonely koi daubed with bloodred splotches. An ageless Japanese waiter materialized in a well-pressed tuxedo. After greeting Inès by name, he led them to a corner table and handed them oversize tooled-leather menus listing a handful of Japanese cliché dishes.

“This is my favorite restaurant,” Inès said. “You should bring Alexandre to give him a special treat.”

A couple, sketched in varying shades of gray, arrived. The male looked like a mid- to low-level functionary, and the female like someone whose main activity was a daily visit to a Carrefour supermarket. They sat at a small table, not exchanging a word or even looking at each other.

“Let’s order. I’m ravenous,” Inès said. She beckoned the waiter over and asked for teriyaki. Capucine chose the
gyoza
—panfried dumplings—a safer bet. Cresting on her enthusiasm, Inès ordered a series of side dishes,
nikujaga,
or beef stew,
kakuni,
or stewed pork, and
nizakana,
braised fish. The waiter diligently scribbled Japanese ideograms on his pad and then hovered.

“Oh yes, the wine. Capucine, why don’t you order that? You’re the expert.”

Capucine looked at the list of five or six wines on the last page of the menu and opted for the Sancerre, another safe bet.

Dinner started with miso soup, which hadn’t been ordered. The Sancerre was tepid. Capucine was tempted to send her soup back and ask for a properly chilled bottle of wine but decided letting the evening find its own pace was the sagest course of action.

Inès took a sip of her soup—“so delicate”—and gave Capucine an earnest look.

“I had lunch today with Juge Léonville. He’s very pleased with your arrest and the confession you obtained.”

“It was all Garbe’s work,” Capucine said.

Inès seemed not to hear.

“He has asked me to consult on the preparation of the file that will go to the prosecutor.” She paused, waiting, almost daring Capucine to say something. There was a long silence. The waiter arrived, assuming they had finished their soup. He lingered for a second, then vanished, leaving them to their miso.

“On one level, it’s a very straightforward case, a crime of lustful passion. But on another there are, ahh,
nuances
that could prove troublesome.” She again looked at Capucine, defying her to comment.

“And, in fact, there is even a third level. I was present and could even be construed as the intended victim. It’s in everyone’s interest, even Serge’s, to obtain a speedy, reasoned conviction. Don’t you agree?”

Capucine was spared answering by the arrival of the waiter with an enormous tray. Dishes were placed on the table with the speed of a croupier dealing cards. The waiter left wordlessly.

“Léonville—and I, for that matter—is of the opinion that Serge needs to be interviewed by him, not only because it is standard in such matters, but to make sure Serge understands where his best interests lie. We would like to arrange an interview with Léonville and myself acting as juges, and with you and—what’s the man’s name?—yes, Garbe, present, representing the police.”

Inès attacked her teriyaki inexpertly with chopsticks, refusing to meet Capucine’s eyes.

Later that night, Capucine sat alone in her kitchen, nibbling tinned foie gras on pieces of toasted baguette and sipping a half bottle of properly chilled Lupiac while waiting for Alexandre to come home.

Two days later, Capucine received a call from Inès.

“Léonville would like to interview Monnot”—Capucine noticed he was no longer Serge in Inès’s lexicon—“in his office tomorrow afternoon. He would like you and Garbe to be present. Of course, I’ll be there, too.”

When Capucine arrived, she discovered Serge in the hallway, on a long oak bench, handcuffed, sitting between two blue-uniformed prison warders. He wore a suit, clean but somewhat rumpled, and a wrinkled, tieless shirt. He was freshly shaved, his hair was neatly slicked down with water, but his eyes were as vacant as if he had been lobotomized. Catching sight of Capucine, he looked up at her in cowed expectancy. She smiled and walked through the door to Léonville’s office.

Léonville sat behind his desk, with Inès facing him. Garbe sat in a corner, oblivious, clearly daydreaming about his retirement.

“Commissaire, I felicitate you on your arrest,” Léonville said. “In fact, I congratulate you on your handling of the entire case. Your subtlety is matched only by your efficiency.”

Inès beamed as if one of her pupils was being praised. Léonville pushed a button on his phone. “Okay, Céleste. Have the prisoner brought in.”

The two warders escorted Serge into the room, loosely holding him by the upper arms. They sat him in a dark-wood, upright armchair, while showing exaggerated respect to both juges. They removed Serge’s handcuffs, retreated, presumably to stand guard in the outer office while waiting to be summoned to return their ward to prison.

Léonville’s secretary entered the room, a laptop under her arm, and made to sit at a small table in the corner.

Léonville lifted a hand, palm outward. “Céleste, that won’t be necessary.” Wordlessly, the secretary left, closing the door behind her so softly, it made no noise at all.

Capucine was mildly surprised. The law required the juge d’instruction’s examination of an indicted suspect to be noted and kept in the file. Still, the juge’s powers were vast, and a stenographer clicking away at a keyboard was bound to create a certain amount of tension.

The interview took over two hours. Léonville assumed a tone of an older brother gently cajoling a younger sibling to tell about a minor, possibly even charming, peccadillo he had been too embarrassed to reveal to his parents.

Léonville took Serge through the incidents three times. Each time, Serge told his story without the slightest variation of the facts. However, with each telling, his affection for Nathalie became more and more evident. It was obvious he had fallen into a deep crush. Whether fueled by love or lust, his feelings for the girl were very real. At the third telling, his sense of regret and loss became palpable.

Léonville gave him a thin but friendly smile.

“You’re very convincing. I’m persuaded the death was a tragic accident. Unfortunately, some sort of court decision will be required. I’m going to have the case sent to the Cour d’Assises. What do you think, Madame le Juge?” he asked Inès. She nodded.

Léonville returned his gaze to Serge. “It’s a lower court than the Tribunal de Grande Instance and is used for less serious cases. The file I will deliver to the procureur will state the incident was involuntary homicide and will recommend every possible clemency.”

Serge’s shoulders dropped in relief.

Inès intervened. “But it is essential that you appear to be as cooperative as possible with the judges. The manifestation of your regret may even lead them to suspend your sentence altogether. Or if there is a jail sentence, it will be a very short one, and you’ll be out in a matter of months. Do you understand?”

“Oui, madame,” Serge answered meekly.

Once Serge had been escorted out of the office by the warders, Léonville turned to Inès.

“You were right. He’s as hormonal as a teenager. He’s also very charismatic. That’s an important point. The judges should have no difficulty reaching a decision.”

Inès turned to Capucine and smiled politely, even condescendingly. It was a smile of dismissal. Capucine rose, as did Garbe behind her. They walked down the hallway side by side.

“Drink?” Garbe asked. “I sure as hell need one, and I only have three weeks of this BS left.”

They found a café and stood at the bar. Garbe ordered cognac and with his eyes invited Capucine to join him. He sank the double in one go and raised his index finger at the man behind the bar for another round.

“When I have to sit through crap like this, I wonder how I lasted my thirty-five years.”

“What do you mean?”

“Christ, Le Tellier. You know the date for the court case is already set, right?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been ordered to appear?”

“No.”

“Well, I have.”

“That’s because you’re in charge of the case and made the arrest.”

Garbe blew air out of his lips and ordered a third cognac.

“And not because I have nothing to say about jade amulets or shell casings? But you might. Isn’t that right, Commissaire?”

Capucine said nothing.

“Another drink?”

“Please.”

The drinks came.

“Don’t get me wrong, Le Tellier. The last thing I want is for this case to get remanded to a higher level of bullshit so they can make me work for another six months or more. But when the brown stuff is up to your neck and you’re actually treading in it, it still turns your stomach. How many years you got left? The rate you’re going, you’re going to make
commissaire principal
or even
commissaire divisionnaire.
In jobs like that, I hear the
scheisse
comes right up to your eyeballs.”

He threw a fifty-euro note on the bar and strode out without waiting for the change.

Capucine decided to be present at the trial, something she never did unless she was notified that she would be called as a witness. She was surprised to see that the case would be tried at the Tribunal de Grande Instance, after all, despite Léonville’s promise. Of course, she said to herself as she walked through the imposing gilt and iron gates and up the massive stone steps to the imposing courthouse,
The ways of the magistrates are highly convoluted, and there may be some technicality that prevented a trial in the lower court.

The courtroom, with its elaborately carved nineteenth-century oak paneling, was even more imposing than the exterior of the building.

Capucine was one of the first to arrive. She chose a seat on a bench almost at the back of the spectators’ gallery. The room filled rapidly with spectators, who occupied all but the last two rows. There was a hush when ten magistrate’s assistants arrived in judicial robes with starched white bibs. They lined up behind the raised semicircular dais, almost six feet above the level of the parquet below. Next arrived the nine jurors, dressed in somber street clothes, who took up position standing behind their chairs at either end of the dais. Finally, the three judges entered, resplendent in red and black robes, topped by medieval-looking velvet caps, and stood at the center of the dais, looking severely down at the spectators.

Despite the dramatis personae, the whole thing took less than half an hour, and most of that was stage setting. The presiding judge, identifiable by the extra gold trim on her cap, sat down, followed—with a loud rumbling of chairs and coughs—by everyone else at the dais. The presiding judge fussily arranged her robe, straightening her bib so the bloodred ribbon of the Legion of Honor and the cerulean-blue one of the Order of Merit were in clear view.

Serge was brought in by two gendarmes and seated on a small wooden dock at floor level. The gendarmes, at attention, sat behind him. He looked frightened and unsure of himself.

The presiding judge spoke to a man in judicial robes who stood on the parquet opposite the dock. Since time immemorial neither the prosecutor nor the defending attorney was given a seat. Instead, they roamed, gesticulating, during the entire trial.

“So, Monsieur le Procureur, now that we have heard the accusation, you may present your case.”

Striding around the room, waving his arm for emphasis, the procureur read Serge’s confession with dramatic pauses and a heightened inflection of key words. It was almost a caricature performance, but the bland statement couched in Police Judiciaire officialese came vibrantly alive. There was good reason that barristers and actors shared a club in London; it was the same métier. Behind the words, Serge came across as an arch villain, dominated by uncontrollable sexual appetites and rages.

The defense attorney opened his mouth to speak but was silenced by the raised hand of the presiding judge.

“Have the accused rise,” she ordered.

Timidly, Serge stood up.

“Do you acknowledge that your confession is a true and accurate representation of the facts as they occurred and that you signed the document of your own free will, without coercion in any form?”