Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery (21 page)

“Oui?”
Verlaque said into the phone. “You're already finished? It's only nine-fifteen a.m.”

“I started at six this morning, I was so pissed off at this attack,” the coroner said. “Besides, when you get to be my age, you sleep less and less. You'll see.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Mlle Durand was raped and strangled on Friday evening—as best I can determine, between six and eight p.m. There's some skin under her fingernails that I'm going to send to the lab; she may have scratched her attacker. And I've started examining Mme
Pauline d'Arras. She died around the same time, between six and eight p.m. on Friday, and she was killed right there, in the vineyard. Tell your guys to look for a bloodstained rock about the size of a baseball. I'll be in touch.” He hung up.

Verlaque had just repeated the gist of the conversation to Paulik and Schoelcher when there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he said.

Alain Flamant came in, holding a red Filofax. “Lots of good stuff here,” he said.

“Thank goodness for pen and paper,” Verlaque said. “Sit down.”

“Mme d'Arras made a visit to her lawyer ten days ago,” Flamant said. “And her husband didn't know about it.”

“How do you know?” asked Paulik.

“Because she wrote beside the appointment time, ‘Don't tell Gilles.'”

Verlaque laughed, despite the heaviness of the morning's news and the stuffiness of his office. He got up and opened the window. “Who's the lawyer?”

“It just says Maître Bley.”

“Éric Bley,” Verlaque said. “I'll go and see him.” He was about to speak when another knock sounded.

“Your office is like Charles de Gaulle airport on a long weekend,” Paulik said.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Yves Roussel said as he entered the room.

Flamant leaned over toward Jules Schoelcher. “Prosecutor Roussel.”

“We're in quite a fix,” Roussel said, pacing the room. Bruno Paulik bent down, put his elbows on his knees, and turned his head sideways to look at Roussel's feet.

“You're not wearing your turquoise cowboy boots,” Paulik said.

“They're getting resoled,” Roussel said, glancing down at his
feet. “While you guys were in here chatting and drinking coffee, I just had to make my way through a crowd of reporters who are standing outside the front doors. Even the national stations are out there; TF1 and M6! The attacker of the girl in Éguilles, and now this woman in Rognes, are one and the same, I take it?”

“Yes,” Verlaque replied. “Bouvet just confirmed that likelihood.”

“And the old lady?”

“Mme d'Arras,” Verlaque said curtly. “I think it was a coincidence that she was attacked in Rognes, but her murder and Mlle Durand's were both committed between six and eight p.m. on Friday night. Her killing was very different, and her wallet was gone, although the wallet could have been taken to throw us off.”

“Well, get me someone to arrest, and quickly!” Roussel said.

Verlaque ate a sandwich at his desk and called Marine's cell phone. “Marine, how are you?” he asked when she answered on the second ring.

“Fine,” she answered.

“And your father was able to take you to the appointment?”

“Yes. He wanted to come into the room, where they did the puncture, but I wouldn't let him.”

“And how are you feeling now?”

“I feel good; I'm trying to read, but I'm having trouble concentrating. Send me on an errand if you can.”

Verlaque pushed his half-eaten sandwich aside. “Do you really want something to do?”

“Yes, I said so.”

“Two things, then, if you really want to,” Verlaque said. “Your friend Philomène. Could you pay her a visit and ask her if this address—6 Rue de la Conception, in Rognes—means anything to her?”

“Fine,” Marine said, writing the address down on the back of an envelope. “Is that where the Durand woman lived, and was murdered on Friday night?”

“Yes. And I was hoping to ask Éric Bley some questions, but we have an appointment any minute with an ex-thief who attacked an old woman a few years ago, and then I'd like to go to Rognes. Would you be able to go over to Bley's office as you've known him for ages?”

“Yes,” Marine answered slowly. “Why?”

“Bley is the d'Arras family lawyer, and Mme d'Arras had an appointment with him last week that she was keeping from her husband. His office is on the Rue Thiers.”

“I know it,” Marine said. “I'll go.” She sat back in her chair and rested the phone on her chest for a second. Éric Bley had asked her out twice in the past year, and both times she had turned him down. “I'll call you as soon as I have any answers,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“You guys work quickly,” Didier Ruère said, twisting in his seat and crossing his legs. “My parole officer called me and here I am, right on time, at twelve-thirty p.m.”

“Then I'll get to the point quickly, so you can go to lunch,” Verlaque said. “Where were you on Friday evening between six and eight o'clock?”

“Wait a minute!” Ruère replied. “I saw the news this morning! I wasn't anywhere near Rognes!”

“Good. Where were you?”

Ruère paused. “I was…Let's see, Friday evening…Oh yeah! I remember! I was here in Aix, at the Bar de Zinc, on the Rue Espariat. You can ask anyone.”

“We will,” Paulik replied. “Who else was there?”

“My buddy Louis,” Ruère said. “We watched the Marseille
soccer game on the bar's television. The waiter and barman know us and will be able to vouch for us. We left around nine p.m., 'cause we were hungry and all the bar has to eat are peanuts.”

Verlaque watched beads of perspiration form on Ruère's forehead. “You'll leave us Louis's phone number, please,” he said.

“Of course.”

Verlaque slipped Ruère a piece of paper, and the thief wrote down a cell-phone number, his hand shaking.

“Saved by the beautiful game,” Paulik said.

Ruère smiled weakly. “I just wish Marseille would win once in a while.”

Marine walked to the top of her street and down the Rue d'Italie a block, then turned right on Rue Cardinale. She walked down the right side of the street and rang the doorbell at number 18, at the buzzer marked “Joubert.” There was no answer; she waited and rang again. She looked up the street and heard the organ playing in Saint-Jean de Malte, so she walked up toward the church. Perhaps Philomène was at choir practice. A crowd of locals and tourists were on the cobbled square in front of the church, coming and going from the Musée Granet, which was showing a colossal Cézanne exhibit. She and Verlaque had been invited to a special showing before the exhibit had officially opened and had come away with admiration for Cézanne that bordered on fanaticism on Verlaque's part. She walked into the church and stood for a few minutes at the back, listening to the music. She saw Frère Benoît, a monk, coming down the aisle and approached him, introducing herself as the daughter of the Drs. Bonnet.

“Pleased to meet you,” Frère Benoît said. “Are you looking for Père Jean-Luc? He's over at the Cézanne exhibit, for the third time.”

Marine laughed. “It is a great show,” she said. “I'm actually looking for Philomène Joubert. I'm her neighbor.”

“Ah, Mme Joubert isn't here, as you can see. She's with some of the other parishioners on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. They should be somewhere around Conques by now.”

Marine's heart sank. “They're doing the whole thing? That would take months!”

“Oh no,” Frère Benoît replied. “Only two weeks at a time; they're doing another stretch in the winter. She even convinced M. Joubert to go along.”

“And can she be contacted?” Marine asked.

“With much difficulty,” the brother replied. “They have no cell phones and are sleeping in hospices that I would describe as extremely rustic. Is it an emergency?”

“No,” Marine replied. “Thank you.”

She walked away and out into the bright sunshine. Was it an emergency? She wasn't sure. What if Philomène did know the address? What if there was a connection? She turned around and ran back into the church, hurrying up the aisle to catch Frère Benoît before he entered the sacristy. “I think it might be an emergency,” she said.

Frère Benoît turned around and nodded. “Very well.”

“It concerns the…violent death…of Pauline d'Arras. She and Mme Joubert grew up together.”

“I see. Why don't you call me this evening, after Vespers, around eight-thirty p.m.? I'll try to find a phone number for one of the hospices along the route.”

“
Merci, mon frère,
” Marine said. She walked up the Rue Cardinale and then north along the Rue d'Italie, which at the top of the street would turn into the Rue Thiers. Once on the Rue Thiers, she stopped and looked in the windows of Cinderella, a shoe store that
had been there since she was a little girl, and where her mother had bought shoes when she herself was small, in the 1950s. Most of the shoes were old-fashioned and sensible, with low heels and good-quality leather, although they did have some multicolored Repetto ballerina flats. The shop was still closed for lunch, and Marine walked on, knowing that she was procrastinating. She wondered if Éric Bley would also still be out, but it was almost 2:30 p.m. When she rang at his office, she was buzzed in, and walked up the elegant stone staircase to the Bley brothers' law offices on the second floor.

“Hello,” Marine said to the well-dressed secretary, “I'm an old friend of Maître Bley's, and was wondering if he is in.”

“I'll ring his office,” the woman said. “What is your name?”

“Marine Bonnet. Dr. Bonnet.” She rarely used her doctoral title, except on occasions when she thought it might help her get more efficient service.

The secretary called Éric Bley, spoke for a few seconds, and then told Marine that she could go on in, the second door on the left.

As Marine gently opened the door, Éric Bley was already halfway across the room to meet her. They stood awkwardly facing each other, not sure if they should shake hands or exchange
la bise
. Marine broke the silence by laughing. “
Quand même,
” she said, “we should do the
bise
. We've known each other long enough.”

Bley laughed. “You're right. I joined the choir just because you were in it.” He put a hand gently on her waist and they kissed each other's cheeks.

Marine's face flushed, and she stepped back. “You really joined the choir for me?”

“No, my mother forced us to join. But you were an added bonus for us Bley brothers.”

Marine laughed.

“How are you?” Bley asked, stepping back to look at her.

“Fine,” she answered. “Thanks for letting me visit.” She quickly took in Bley's delicate features: his long aquiline nose, thin lips, and pale-blue eyes. His hair was receding, which only showed off his fine tanned forehead, his eyes, and his high cheekbones. As teenagers, Marine and her girlfriends had nicknamed him “Malibu Boy.”