Cezanne's Quarry (7 page)

He drank the second portion of absinthe in one undiluted gulp.

His coughing alerted the proprietor to his foolhardy transgression. Westerbury grabbed the jug and drank from it. The water dribbled down his neck. “Just a rough patch, old man,” he explained in English, “just a rough patch.” His companion lowered his arched eyebrows and shrugged, but he didn’t take his eyes off his customer. Yes, Westerbury thought as he started to take some money from his pocket, what do the natives care as long as you pay the bills and don’t break the pottery?

Westerbury lifted the brown bottle. There wasn’t much left in it. “How much?” he asked.

Another shrug. “Four francs.” Too much. “And—” the man pointed to the twice-emptied glass.

Before the barkeeper could finish his calculations, Westerbury slapped a ten-franc note on the counter. He had not come here expecting consolation from a stranger. Grabbing the bottle by its neck, Westerbury set out into the bright sunlight and continued up a hill, toward the mountain, away from the city.

This is where he would find his true consolation. From nature. If she could not help him at his time of greatest need, what good was she? Westerbury lurched as he climbed. He passed a few peasants and tinkers going to town. They made way for him, even though they had no idea who he was. Nor did they know the true history of the earth upon which they were treading. Besotted, priest-ridden lot.

When he reached the crest, Westerbury leaned his back against a great oak and let his body slide down the trunk so he could sit and observe. This is how he and Solange had first seen Mont Sainte-Victoire. They had hired a driver the day after arriving in town and asked him to find them the best view of the mountain. When they first caught sight of it, Westerbury had been so overcome by its shimmering white magnificence that he cried out. “Look, my love! Upon this rock I shall build my church!” Solange smiled and laid two gloved fingers upon his mouth, shaking her head. It was one of her signals, not to give offense to the driver with his blasphemy. Never to give offense. Not to Arlette. Not to anyone who was incapable of understanding. How very polite, how very French. Yet she had never been offended. She had always wanted to understand.

Westerbury took another gulp from the bottle. This is not why he was here: he was here to gain strength. To remember his purpose. To rid the world of ignorance and servile fear. Westerbury surveyed his surroundings. Sainte-Victoire, Holy Victory, indeed. The good Christians of Aix had named that great, beautiful mass of limestone after the triumphant slaughter of the barbarian hordes, whose pagan blood, they believed, still fertilized and colored their piece of the earth. They believed their God created the world in seven days. But Westerbury knew better. “No vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end”: that was what the great James Hutton, Lyell’s teacher, said. How often had he repeated that to Solange, and to their initiates? “Your French geologists imagine that we are all dropping bit by bit into the ocean. But we English hold for perpetual renewal.” “
Comment, mon cher
?” she would ask, right on cue. “How?” And he would explain: about the fiery center of the world. About the theories of vulcanists and plutonists. About the slow work of glaciers. About intrusion, upheaval, eruption. And, yes, about erosion. But only so that the earth could feed herself again in an endless cycle of renewal.

And Mont Sainte-Victoire, rising so incongruously, all by herself, was going to help him. Since that first day, he had explored her every facet, seen her every mood. He watched her changing colors from afar, searched for fossils on her highest reaches, picked at her lower regions for clues to her mysteries. She was his. Someday he would reveal how many millions of years it had taken to reach her full glorious height and what great subterranean forces had brought her there.

Westerbury drank more slowly. If he could just sit here for a while, watching the sun move over her face, he could regain his calm. He could think. In the noon light she shimmered white, silver, gray, blue. Just like—the memory invaded his consciousness with piercing clarity—just like Solange’s body, above him, as they made love, the shafts of morning light streaming across her pale skin. He had told her, as he ran his hand up her back, that she was his mountain. Strong and pure and slowly rising to a spectacular peak, like Mont Sainte-Victoire.

“And what is this,
mon amour
?” She shook her hair and let it fall upon his shoulders, sheltering his face.

“Red and gold, pink and orange, like the strange Provençal soil,” he answered. “You are the earth.”

“And my eyes,
mon amour
?”

“Like the hidden, purest, primeval sea.”

Then she would kiss him, cup his face in her hands, and ask, “And,
mon amour
, what are you?”

“I,” he explained, “I am Pluto, the god of earth and fertility. I am all heat. I am coming to you and will make you rise with my molten liquids.”

She would kiss him again. “
Mon sauvage
,” she would say, “Come here,
mon sauvage blond
.” And her eyes would close as he thrust upward. Sometimes she would whisper her invitation again and again, until, finally, he would gasp. And she would fall upon him. Gently now. All soft and warm. Hands around his face again. Eyes open, smiling, loving him.

“Oh God,” he cried aloud, as he threw the bottle away. “Oh God,” he covered his face with his hands. “How could I have been such a fool! What mere mortal deserved what we had? And I destroyed it.

“Help me now!” he shouted at the mountain. Help me now. But a mountain could not take back his words. Or his deeds. She had given him everything. Except for one thing. And that, in the end, had driven him mad.
Comment, mon amour, comment
? That
politesse
, that kindness. What do you mean,
mon cher
? How would you like it? All, except for one thing. How he had longed to possess her completely. And when he found out about Cézanne, he had accused her. “What do you give him? Do you let him get on top?” That would be his eternal shame, the unkindest cut of all. Until the last knife thrust to her heart. Now nothing could be undone. Nothing. What a wretch he was. What a miserable, damnable wretch.

He was sobbing openly now. Solange was gone. There was no one to help him. Westerbury rose, using the tree trunk for support. This was no good. There was no forgetting. At least not today. He had things to do. He must talk to Arlette, explain the quarrel, and send her to the priest. And he must find Cézanne, the cause of it all.

“Y
OU LET HIM GO?”
Franc shouted. No “sir” this time, only angry disbelief.

“I’m not sure that he is our man.”

The inspector sank into the chair occupied six hours earlier by the sweating, fearful Westerbury. “Maybe we should find out where the Proc is hiding out and drag him here. Or get one of the other judges to help out.”

The prosecutor was not due back for a week and a half and, as for another magistrate—“No,” Martin said flatly. Definitely not that. To be pulled off his first important case? It would ruin him. No. Martin was going to solve the case, and solve it his way. With a reasoned, even-handed inquiry. At the very least, he needed to see what Cézanne had to say before charging the Englishman.

“I had Joseph put one of your men on Westerbury, thinking we could find out more that way than by having him rot in a cell.”

“But by the time Old Joseph—”

“Yes,” Martin put up his hand, “but he could not have gone far, and I did keep his identification card.”

This precaution did not placate Franc, whose chest was still heaving with indignation. Martin decided to change the subject. “You searched the Vernet apartment?”

Franc shrugged. “This morning, while you were questioning our suspect. Nothing helpful, I’m afraid.” He was beginning to retreat into a more appropriate attitude.

“Did you speak to the maid?”

“Tried to. She whimpered half the time, wailed the other half.” Franc imitated a woman’s high whining voice: “‘Mme Solange, poor Mme Solange.’” He blew air out of his mouth in disgust. “Maybe after she gets over her hysteria—”

“Did she tell you that Mme Vernet received a note before going to the quarry?”

“No.” Franc straightened up. “Who told you that?”

“Westerbury.”

This small triumph was short-lived. “He could be lying.”

“I don’t think so,” said Martin, standing his ground. “Did you look through any papers?”

“Yes. Bills, calling cards, that’s about it.”

“The purse?”

“Only a few coins.”

“And the quarry?”

The inspector shook his head. “Me and the boys went over everything again. Found nothing. She was killed there, we know that. No trail of blood. But no knife either. And,” Franc raised his eyebrows in amusement, “no other works of ‘art.’”

“Very well,” Martin said. In spite of the doubts that Franc had just aroused, he had to show who was in charge. “I’ve telegraphed Paris to see if they have anything on Westerbury and Vernet. Tomorrow I’ll need to question the maid, and then Cézanne. If you or one of your boys could keep track of Westerbury. . . .” At least Franc refrained from delivering another reproach. “And” Martin reiterated, “let’s not forget the note. Westerbury said that the message was delivered by a boy. We must find him. He may be a key—”

“If there really was a note, and if the killer did not get to him first. . . .”

“But if it was, as you say, a crime of passion, on the spur of the moment—” Martin stammered. He hadn’t thought until that moment that an unknown child might be in danger.

“A murderer will do anything to cover his tracks.”

And Martin had let Westerbury go. Cézanne was still out there. Martin’s mouth ran dry. His mind raced. If the killer had argued with Solange Vernet in the quarry, if she had rebuffed him, surely she would be his only victim.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I was only suggesting a possibility.” Franc must have read the distress on Martin’s face. “Like I said before, all my experience tells me it’s a simple crime of passion. Nothing more. Committed by some weakling like your Englishman.”

A possibility
. A possibility that Martin needed to put out of his mind for the moment. He needed to stick to his plan. He fingered the medical report. At least Dr. Riquel’s findings seemed to confirm the hypothesis that Solange Vernet had been killed in a moment of rage. She had also been raped.

“Did you tell Westerbury that Mme Vernet may have been violated?” Martin asked quietly. He was sure that Riquel had discussed the torn undergarments and traces of semen with Franc.

“No, I just question suspects to find out what they know. I don’t give information unless I think it will get something out of them. As soon as he saw the body, he blubbered like a woman, and then he would not talk. Besides, who knows if it was really
rape
, considering the kind of woman she was?”

Martin had considered the kind of woman Solange Vernet had been and had come to different conclusions than his inspector. “Nevertheless, before you go home,” Martin handed Franc a note, “could one of your men deliver this to Dr. Riquel? I am requesting that he not tell anyone about the rape. And I am asking the same from you. There is no reason why this has to be reported. It may only cause more panic, once the news of the murder gets out.”

He had prepared this speech. The truth was that he did not want Solange Vernet to suffer this final public indignity unless absolutely necessary.

“If you say so.” Franc paused for a moment, then said, “Sir, I was out of line—”

Martin held his hand up to signify that no apology was necessary.

“But,” Franc continued, “this is the case that could make your career and mine. And, no matter what I said before, I’m sure we can do it. Together, before the Proc comes back.”

“Yes, Franc, that’s my hope too. But we have to be sure we have the right man.”

The inspector hesitated before breaking the silence. “We’ll find him,” he said with quiet conviction, announcing an uneasy truce between them.

Franc had left the box of material evidence on Martin’s desk. Martin did not dig deep to look at Solange Vernet’s torn undergarments. That would have felt like another violation. Nor did he unfold the dress. He had already seen her blood. He only retrieved the medal that lay on top of the parasol. Wrapping the white cord around his hand, he took it over to the window to get a clearer look. It was the same one his mother wore, an emblem of the Virgin standing atop the world with the rays of the sun emanating from her hands. Under this image ran the familiar words “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” Had Solange called out to her Virgin for help in those last horrible moments? Or to God? Or had she just cried out in the pain and horror?

Martin clasped the medal hard in his hand, as if it could tell him what kind of woman Solange Vernet had really been. Had she been truly religious? Or a self-taught intellectual? Or, merely, a parvenu who had fashioned herself out of whole cloth, like one of the elegant hats she had made and sold to her wealthy customers? With a sigh, Martin dropped the medal into the evidence box and placed it in the wooden cabinet that stood against the wall across from his bookshelves. He closed the door, locked it, and carefully placed the key in his top drawer. He was done for the day. He had to find a way to forget for a while, to ignore the doubts that Franc had just aroused, about the boy and about Martin’s ability to see through the lies and be tough enough to face down a killer. He needed a respite and longed to be among people for a time before returning to his solitary room.

So he headed to La Bonne Ménagère, a place where every evening bachelors gathered to enjoy the solid bourgeois fare, while they read the newspapers provided by the proprietors. When he walked in, Martin was relieved to see that at least here nothing had changed. Most of the diners were lost in their own thoughts, although a few acknowledged Martin’s arrival with a silent nod. A top hat or bowler—and, for the older men, a walking stick and gloves—occupied the empty seats at the small tables. The couple who ran the restaurant never asked questions and never left their post, even in the most fearsome August heat. Most customers showed their appreciation by appearing several times a week. Although he could hardly afford it, Martin usually found comfort in the little restaurant’s sedate atmosphere.