Murder on the Mediterranean (Capucine Culinary Mystery) (8 page)

T
he instant they emerged from their taxis at the marina, they saw something was very wrong. Wrong enough to jolt them out of their sleepy, happy mood, where the only thought in their heads was stumbling down the companionway steps and collapsing into their bunks.

Bright lights skewered
Diomede
at her berth. They rushed down the gangway to the boat, their feet ringing out on the aluminum of the floating pier. Two uniformed policemen appeared, blocking their way. The boat had been cordoned off with yellow police tape. Two arc lights on tripods illuminated the scene. All the interior lights of the boat were on. On deck, uniformed police officers shuffled back and forth, scoring the nonslip surface with their boots. Below, more police officers could be seen through the ports, roughly rooting through the contents of the galley. Capucine had the sensation that their homely but honest boat was being raped.

Serge was indignant. “What are you doing! Get off my boat immediately! You have no right. It’s a French vessel. You have no authority to be on her.” He attempted to shove past the policemen and board the boat. One of the officers put the flat of his hand on Serge’s chest and pushed. Serge stumbled backward and nearly fell.

“Capucine,” he said, “do something. Make them go away.”

“Serge, there’s nothing to do. The boat has been impounded. And I wouldn’t try to strong-arm a police officer again. That’s going to get you a night behind bars, which you definitely wouldn’t enjoy.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Hotel,” Capucine said.

Serge’s face crinkled, as if he was on the edge of tears. “A hotel? How the hell are we going to find a hotel at this hour of the night? Look at this damn place.” With a sweep of his arm, he indicated the bleak area behind the marina. The only amenities were a minute convenience store and a grim-looking café, both shuttered. Behind the marina lay a vast deserted industrial area.

“What am I supposed to do? Cruise around Arbatax in a taxicab in the middle of the night, trying to find hotel rooms for ten people without luggage? That’ll be a perfect end to the evening. Merde, merde, merde!” He stamped the metal dock, making it ring.

Serge marched off to the end of the jetty, snapped open his cell phone, punched a speed-dial button, turned his back on the police and the boat crew. In less than thirty seconds he swiveled back, his face alive with a radiant smile.

“
Grazie mille,
Tommasso. You’re a prince among men. See you in a few minutes.
Ciao.
”

“Problem solved. Tommasso is going to put us up for the night. He even has a supply of toiletries for his guests. I’m calling us some cabs. I can’t get away from these Italian cops fast enough.”

Tommasso’s joy at their return seemed genuine enough. Capucine was sure that he would dine out for years to come on the tale of the evening he had offered a French police commissaire a room because her boat had been declared a crime scene.

The villa seemed to contain an infinity of suites, made sumptuous by the unsubtle hand of an interior decorator. They were decorated with aggressively endearing peasant furniture and precious scenes of olive trees and fishing boats.

Large survival kits—plastic containers crammed with luxury toiletries, including toothbrushes, shaving equipment, colognes, deodorants, shampoos and conditioners, perfumes—one for men, another for women, had been placed on each pillow. The effect was that of a luxury Relais & Châteaux country inn.

Capucine took a shower, hoping to cleanse herself of the feeling that for the first time in her life she was, somehow, on the wrong side of the law.

She dried herself off and walked through the house, emerging onto the terrace, sure it would be deserted save for Alexandre smoking his final cigar of the day.

She was dismayed to see that Alexandre was locked in an energetic discussion with Tommasso about something they were drinking. Capucine debated turning on her heel and going to bed, but her desire to be with Alexandre won out. She padded out on the terrace in her bare feet.

It was about grappa. Tommasso had placed an array of bottles on the long table and was attempting to persuade Alexandre of the superiority of the Sicilian product over the Sardinian. Capucine knew full well this was the sort of exercise that could amuse Alexandre until the rosy fingers of dawn crept up over the horizon.

“Tommasso, you’re right. The Grappa di Malvasia delle Lipari is the clear winner. Bravo, Sicilia!” He downed the last half inch of grappa in his tulip-shaped glass, reached around Capucine’s waist, drew her toward him, kissed her temple.

“It comes from a little village a few miles from mine back home. I know the man who makes it very well. He is my godfather. A man of many talents.”

Tommasso handed Capucine a glass of grappa made by the many-talented man and refilled Alexandre’s. The three exchanged polite banalities. The wind from the hill brought down the odor of wild herbs and ruffled the canopy of grape leaves above them.

Tommasso put his glass down on the table.

“
Mi dispiace molto.
Nothing would give me more pleasure than chatting with the two of you all night long, but I’m afraid I have a very early meeting and must go to bed. But please, stay and enjoy the night.”

The night was indeed magical. The moon had finally become entirely full, a perfectly round orb.

“Let’s go down and sit by that pool in the rock grotto. It’s perfect for an evening like this,” Capucine said.

Alexandre led her down three flights of steps cut into the rock to a natural grotto, which had been enlarged by architects and fitted with plumbing to make it appear to be a natural pool.

“A whole night of having you in my arms, far away from any living creature, on a night like this. It’s my definition of
heaven,
” Alexandre said. But at the grotto Alexandre deflated when he saw Jacques sitting at the edge of the pool, facing the sea, his legs dangling over a twenty-foot drop.

With some trepidation they inched out over the rocks to Jacques’s side and sat down, Capucine between her cousin and her husband. Alexandre passed one of the glasses to Jacques and shared his with Capucine. Alexandre lit a cigar.

They said nothing, staring into a moon so incandescent, it cauterized the shock of the police defilement of the boat.

Jacques’s loud voice shattered the calm.

“Petite cousine,
for once, I’m going to extract you from the bouillabaisse before you even know you’re in it. Aren’t you impressed?” He extended his empty glass to Alexandre for a refill.

Capucine sat up straight. “Jacques, not now. It’s been a very long day. Let’s just go to bed.”

“Petite cousine, all this sea air is making you dull. As I’m sure you’ve told your corpulent consort many a time, the best things in life come in small packages. And I have one for you right here in my hand.”

He held out his closed fist, fingers down, to Capucine. Despite her pique at being teased, she opened her palm under his. He stretched his fingers open.

It was difficult to see what it was in the dark. Alexandre lit his lighter.

“A shell casing,” Capucine said.

“Look a little closer.”

It was a nine-millimeter shell casing marked SPEER around the bottom edge. It was from one of the so-called safety-tipped American rounds that the French police had started issuing three months before. A shell casing that could only have come recently from a French police weapon.

“Where did you find this?”

“It was wedged into the little recess at the edge of the deck on the forecastle. I noticed it as we were approaching the coast on our way into Porto Cervo after Nathalie went overboard.”

There was a long silence, punctuated only by compact little cumuli of Alexandre’s cigar smoke rising into the moonlight.

Capucine reached into her pocket, produced her iPhone, fussed with it.

“Here,” she said, handing the phone to Jacques. “Show me exactly where you found it.”

The picture on the little screen was a close-up of the foredeck area.

“It’s Régis’s blog,” Capucine said. “I’ve become an avid reader. He posts endless pictures of our trip. This picture was taken before you found the shell casing.”

Jacques put his finger on the screen. “Right here.”

Capucine took the smartphone back, zoomed in on the image. Régis’s pictures were very high resolution. It was obvious there was no shell casing.

“Is there a chance it rolled there after the picture was taken?” Capucine asked.

“None whatsoever. It was wedged in tightly. So tightly someone must have jammed it in so it wouldn’t get lost.” Jacques beamed his Cheshire cat grin on Capucine. “Aren’t you glad, little cousin, that it was me who found it and not one of those heavy-booted
carabinieri?
”

He held his palm out flat in front of Capucine. Automatically, she placed the shell casing in his hand. In a single fluid motion, Jacques crooked his thumb and projected the shell like a small boy shooting a marble. It rose in the air, the moonlight glinting on its polished brass surface, and fell into the thick undergrowth far below.

“It won’t ever be found down there. That’s one thing we can count on.”

“Jacques! That was evidence.”

“That’s precisely the point.
Now
we can go to bed.”

T
he next morning, as they were all eating breakfast on the long table on the terrace, a Fiat police squad car tore up the driveway and braked sharply, spraying gravel. Capucine assumed she was being picked up for an “interrogation,” one step up from an “interview” in the hierarchy of police investigation. Capucine wondered if she would be taken away in handcuffs.

Two police officers, elegant in red-striped trousers and tunics with polished chrome buttons, emerged from the car and, with great politeness, inquired after Commissario Le Tellier.

As Capucine descended the steps to the driveway, both officers came to attention and saluted smartly. This was certainly not the way suspects were picked up in France. One of them apologized for the intrusion and said that the
vice questore
had requested her presence at the
questura.
“But at your entire convenience, Signora Commissario.” The officer smiled conspiratorially. “Please, finish your breakfast. We will be happy to wait.” Definitely not the way people were picked up in France.

At the questura, she was taken to the vice questore’s office, a room imposing enough for a junior minister. The vice questore looked like anything but a police officer—aristocratic aquiline nose, silver hair brushed back from his forehead, well-tailored brown summer suit. With smiling lips and frowning eyes, he rose from behind an antique desk, circled to her side, and motioned her into a wooden armchair cushioned in red silk embroidered with gold thread. Without saying a word, he sat facing her in a matching chair. Two men eased into the room. One was Ispettore Manfredi; the other, a few years older and considerably more muscular, looked like an old-school hard-nosed cop. They took seats in opposite corners of the large room.

So, this was to be an interrogation, after all, but there was definitely something odd going on. The tension in the room was palpable. Capucine admired the vice questore’s interviewing technique. After a good many long beats, the vice questore introduced himself. “Vice Questore Piras. And, of course, you’ve met Ispettore Manfredi. And this is
Commissario Capo
Deiana.”

A senior commissaire. There was a lot of brass in the room. Too much brass for an interrogation.

Languidly, the vice questore crossed one long leg over another, taking great care not to flatten the knife-sharp crease of his trouser leg.

“We are faced with an exceedingly delicate situation, Commissario,” the vice questore said. “I understand the ispettore explained to you yesterday that evidence has been discovered that strongly indicates the disappearance of your employee was the result of foul play.”

“Yes. Apparently, a sea jacket with a suspicious hole in it.”

“Precisely. The forensics unit has completed its analysis. The hole was unquestionably made by a nine-millimeter bullet.”

“Were there any traces of blood?”

“No. But the forensics experts say all traces of fresh blood could have been washed off by the salt water. But there was evidence of gunpowder singeing around the edge of the hole, indicating that the shot was fired at close range.”

He gave Capucine one of his expressionless looks, inviting her to comment. She said nothing.

“The interesting thing, however, is that there is a name printed in indelible laundry ink on the jacket’s white manufacturer’s label. The name is not Martin, the victim’s, but Maistre. I understand you have a Signorina Inès Maistre on board. What can you tell me about that?”

“When Mademoiselle Martin fell—went—overboard, she, Mademoiselle Maistre, and I were keeping watch on deck. There had been lightning in the distance, so all three of us had brought foul-weather gear up on deck. It was far too warm to wear the jackets, so we bundled them up on the cockpit sole, under our feet. Mademoiselle Martin got up to go forward and relieve herself. Apparently, she was experiencing some form of gastric distress. Just as she stood up, the storm broke. She grabbed a jacket and rushed to the bow. She must have picked up Mademoiselle Maistre’s by mistake.”

The vice questore nodded repeatedly, looking a little like a Chinese porcelain sage with its head set on a spring. After a long pause—his interview technique really was very good—he went back and sat behind his desk, opened the center drawer and, with two long, almost skeletal fingers, extracted a plastic evidence bag as if it took a great effort to even touch something so filthy. He placed the bag on the desk. A Beretta Px4 Storm Type F Sub-Compact. The gun was smudged with white aluminum fingerprint powder.

“The pistol is stamped to indicate that it is the property of the French government. The only French agency, military or civilian, that is issued the model Px4 is the Police Judiciaire. Would this pistol happen to be yours, Commissario?”

“It could well be. It’s the standard Police Judiciaire off-duty sidearm.”

“It was found in a drawer in your cabin.” He held the bag out imperially in the direction of Ispettore Manfredi, who approached the desk briskly. Manfredi removed the gun from its plastic envelope, pushed the button releasing the clip, caught it, and held it out to Capucine.

“It would seem that there are only twelve cartridges in the clip. One is missing,” the vice questore said.

Capucine said nothing. She knew she had a very bad, even dangerous, habit. Common sense and police regulations dictated that the chambers of automatic pistols be left empty. If a cartridge were left in the chamber, there was a risk that the gun could go off if dropped or if it was on the belt of an officer who was knocked down. Still, Capucine always left a cartridge in the chamber. A gun that required both hands to be armed struck her as imprudent no matter what the risk. She burned with desire to ask if there had been a cartridge in the chamber, meaning that two shots had been fired, but knew that silence was the order of the day.

The vice questore said, “It’s very suggestive that a cartridge is missing.” He let one of his long silences do some more heavy lifting.

At length, the vice questore opened the center drawer of his desk once again and extracted another, smaller, evidence bag. He zipped it open and let a small brass cartridge case, dusty with fingerprint powder, fall on the mahogany inlay of the desk. He slipped a wooden pencil in the shell and held it up for Capucine to see.

Capucine was stunned. There had been a second shot. It took an effort to maintain her wooden face.

“This was found on the bow of your boat. It is made for the French police by a company called Speer. They are not available to the public. The forensics experts will determine if the markings are from the firing pin of your gun, but I think we can assume they will be.”

Very slowly, the vice questore tipped the shell casing back into its bag, opened the center drawer of the desk, swept the evidence bags into it with his arm, closed the drawer with an audible
thwunk.
There was a sense of finality to the gesture.

He smiled conspiratorially at Capucine. “Commissario, as a police officer, I’m sure you will agree with me that—pending the results of the investigation, of course—you are the principal suspect. You were on deck in the middle of the night with the victim, and there is evidence that she was shot on deck, and that she was shot with your gun.” He shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyebrows, and frowned, as if to ask, “What more could you want?”

Capucine had been over the facts many times in her head, but she was surprised and dismayed at how compelling the case against her was when it came out of the mouth of someone else.

“Yes, Vice Questore, I agree there is some circumstantial evidence, but what possible motive could I have for murdering someone I had met for the first time only a few days before?”

The vice questore snorted in laughter and turned to share the joke with his two officers, who chortled back politely.

“Commissario, every police department on the entire coast of Sardinia deals with incidents on the yachts of the rich all summer long. Almost all of them involve young boat hands. They are invariably hippie types with very loose morals. The sea is nature’s most powerful aphrodisiac.

“It could easily be argued that you discovered your husband with the girl. Later, in the middle of the night, you shot her under the cover of the storm. No jury in the world would refuse that as a motive.” Elbows on the desk, he spread his hands palms upward in a papal gesture, underscoring the strength of the argument.

There was another long moment of silence. Capucine was certain that in the next few minutes she would find herself in a detention cell.

“That is why my men and I have spent a good part of the night working together and conferring with our superiors to find a solution. Happily, I have just received confirmation from my superiors that we have succeeded.

“Part of our inquiry involved consulting the marine-current expert of the guardia costiera. He produced some extremely good news. It seems that the currents that flow through the Strait of Bonifacio, the body of water separating Corsica and Sardinia, are extremely complex.” This said in an almost jovial, dinner party tone. “There is some sort of compression phenomenon due to the funnel made by the two landmasses. There are vortices and whorls and all sorts of complicated little tricks created by all the little islands.” He paused dramatically, setting up his punch line.

“The expert concluded, without the slightest possible shadow of a doubt, that your boat was in French waters when the tragic incident occurred. I had a lengthy meeting with the magistrate this morning, and he agrees with me that you are free to leave, at your entire convenience, of course.”

“So you’re dropping the case?”

“Hardly. We’re merely referring it to the proper authorities. Rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s, as it were. The evidence”—he rapped the desk with his knuckles—“will be sent to France. It is up to the French to decide what to do with it.”

Capucine had always heard that
vice questori
were more politicians than policemen. Now she understood why.

“And so the French are to investigate the case?”

“Ah, Commissario, how can I possibly tell
you,
of all people, anything about the workings of the French police?” He made a curious wringing motion with his hands, which, Capucine guessed, was a subconscious expression of his washing his hands of the whole business.

“But I will offer you a personal consideration, an observation from one colleague to another. Your boat is no longer sequestered. It would be in your interest to depart quickly. You know the vagaries of politics. Who knows when someone may change his mind? I have been ordered to release you with the presumed assumption that you will return to France to assist with the investigation. But, of course, I have no means to determine your final destination. I understand Brazil is a charming country with no extradition treaties of any kind. And the yacht club in Rio is said to be one of the most beautiful in the world.”

He stood up and, with fluid courtesy, escorted Capucine to the front door of the questura.

Capucine was returned to the villa by the same squad car. She found everyone at lunch on the terrace. Capucine slid into a chair that had been left vacant for her next to Alexandre.

“Well, what did the police sa—” Serge started to ask eagerly but was cut off by Alexandre’s raised hand.

“
Ma chérie,
do you have any appetite at all?”

Capucine kissed his cheek. Bless his sense of priorities.

“No. I couldn’t eat a thing. Maybe a glass of wine, though. We’re free to go. In fact, we’re encouraged to go quickly. Their marine-current expert has decided that poor Nathalie went overboard in French waters, and they’re sticking with their original decision to wash their hands of the whole business.”

“Fabulous,” Serge replied, jumping up. “Best news I’ve ever heard. I need to get back to my boat and see if those awful policemen have drilled holes in the hull or something. We can provision up and get the hell out of here in an hour.”

“But where will we go?” Aude asked, her glacial eyes deeper and more impenetrable than ever.

Serge sat back down in his chair with a thump.

It took less than a minute to resolve the question. Enough was enough. Saint-Tropez was fifteen hours away under sail. Back in France they could finish their vacations on their own, happy on dry land. There was not a single demurring murmur. Taxis were called. A rapid note was written by Serge to Tommasso. They all scribbled their initials on the bottom.

In the confusion they had called too many cabs. Alexandre and Régis commandeered one and made off for downtown Tortoli to buy provisions. Capucine and Inès found themselves in another. The others took the third.

“So what did the vice questore really say?” Inès asked Capucine.

Capucine gave Inès a summary, not omitting the comment about Brazil.

“They’ll send the evidence on the diplomatic pouch,” Inès said. “Your vice questore is convinced you’ll be arrested the minute you set foot on French soil. But he’s wrong. Even if the evidence and the vice questore’s explanatory memorandum arrive tomorrow morning, it will still take the magistrates a week, or even more, to sort out the jurisdictional issues. But sooner or later, the case will be handed over to the police. There’s no doubt about that.”

Capucine said nothing for the rest of the ride down to the marina. There was a flaw in Inès’s logic. The police couldn’t be suspected. It wasn’t that they were above suspicion. It was that they weren’t in the game. You could hardly give a referee a red card, now could you? Those were only for the players.