Murder in a Minor Key (31 page)

“We have nothing like it,” I agreed.

“A jazz funeral is really a celebration,” he said. “We celebrate what a good life he had.”

“He did have a good life,” I said.

“We celebrate the better place he’s going to,” Beatrice added.

At Lafayette Cemetery, the door to the family crypt was open and Wayne Copely’s coffin was lovingly deposited inside, his friends and relatives looking on. A short prayer was said. As the service ended, the band struck up “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble,” the long-established tune that accompanies mourners leaving the cemetery. The lively music pulled people along, observers now joining the parade, dancing in the street behind the band, and the family. When the song ended, Blind Jack lifted his trumpet to begin a new song. The sun glinted off the polished brass of his horn as he played the opening notes. They hung, shimmering in the air, and everyone stopped to listen intently. Jack paused and started playing again. It was “Amazing Grace,” but this time, the hymn was an echo of Little Red’s interpretation. This time, it was cheerful, full of fire and promise, a paean to life and the joy that is music.

Here’s a preview of the
Provence—To Die For
available now.

He was dead. There was no doubt. His body was slumped against the arched door in the wall to the right, the papers he’d been consulting earlier scattered about him on the floor. A red stain above his heart was spreading down the front of his white shirt. His eyes were open, the vivid blue fading, and his mouth gaped, forming an “o,” the expression of surprise that must have greeted his murderer. Apart from the papers on the floor there was no sign of a struggle. No over turned chair. No defense wounds on his hands. No clothing askew.

I knelt down and placed two fingers on his neck where a pulse should have been, and felt only cool skin.

The dead man was Emil Bertrand, renowned chef and owner of the restaurant
L’Homme Qui Court,
which had achieved a coveted one-star rating from the famed Michelin guide. He’d been the guest instructor this morning at the cooking class offered by the Hotel Melissande. I’d been one of his students.

It was my first trip to Provence, the region of southern France known for its quaint villages, summer festivals, fields of purple lavender, wild thyme, wonderful wine, and a fungus prized by chefs the world ’round—the black truffle.

I was coming off a particularly hectic summer in which friends, some invited and some not, had decided Cabot Cove was a great place to visit in July and August. I didn’t know where September and October had gone. I only knew that various projects, some work-related and some community based, seemed to vacuum up all the hours in the days, until I began to feel I would never have time to sit down.

But that was all behind me now. Ahead were two months in the French countryside, in a borrowed house, with lots of time for reading and relaxing and learning the secrets of cooking in the Provençal style. At least, that had been my plan.

A slight breeze ruffled the papers on the floor a I stood. The door in the archway on the opposite wall was partly open. A sliver of light could be seen along the jamb, and the undulating sound of the Klaxon horns of emergency vehicles leaked into the room. Reluctant to leave my fingerprints, I pulled a handkerchief form my bag and used it to draw open the heavy wooden door. It led to a small paved area outside. I scanned the ground for evidence, something the killer might have dropped if he or she had departed this way. A short flight of stairs connected to the street level. I climbed it and found myself halfway up a steep hill. The street was deserted. I couldn’t see over the top of the hill; not even a car crossed the intersection at its base. If someone had escaped through this door, they were gone now. Then something sparkled up at me from the curb. I leaned over and picked it up. It was an earring, which I put in my pocket. The sirens were deafening now. I retraced my steps and, using the handkerchief again, drew the door almost closed behind me. After the bright glare of daylight, my eyes had difficulty adjusting to the gloom, but I knew one thing. I was no longer alone.

“
Bonjour Madame
,” said a voice filled with irony. “May I ask what you are doing here?”

“Oh, my,” I said. “You certainly gave me a start.”

“I could say the same of you,” he said in near perfect English.

The speaker was a debonair man in a gray suit. A black trench coat was slung over one arm. His auburn hair was streaked with gray and he wore it slicked back from his forehead, which emphasized the high-bridged prominent nose and the piercing look in his hard brown eyes. A colleague in a tweed jacket was leaning over Bertrand, his fingers probing the same area of the chefs neck where mine had been earlier.

I put out my hand. “I’m Jessica Fletcher,” I said. “I was one of Chef Bertrand’s students this morning.”

“You are American?” he asked, ignoring my hand.

“Yes. I’m staying at the home of a friend who lives in St. Marc. I came to Avignon this morning to take Monsieur Bertrand’s cooking class.” I cocked my head toward the kitchen classroom.

“You have your passport with you, yes?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” I opened my bag, pulled out my passport and handed it to him.

He flipped it open to the photograph, checked it against my face, paged forward to the date-of-entry stamp and gave it back. “Why is it that you are down here?” he asked sternly.

“I was having tea with some of the other students when Madame Poutine—she was also in our class—accosted us. She was distraught, and crying that the chef had been killed. I thought she might be mistaken in what she’d seen. I rushed down here hoping he might be alive, in need of medical help. But, as you see, she was right.”

“You are a doctor?”

“Heavens, no!”

“A nurse perhaps?”

“No. I have no medical degree.”

“Yet you came down here to offer the chef medical help.”

“I know that sounds odd,” I said, “but if he’d had a heart attack or choked on something, I thought I could lend assistance until an ambulance arrived.”

“And, of course, you are trained to lend assistance. No?”

“In a way, yes,” I said, relieved I could answer in the affirmative. “I’ve taken several first-aid courses, and CPR; that’s cardiopulmonary resuscitation.”

“I know what CPR is.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if it was the same in French.”

“And what were you doing outside, if I may ask?”

“Certainly,” I said, “I noticed that the door was ajar, and wanted to see where it led. I thought perhaps the killer was making his escape.”

“And was this killer ‘making his escape’?”

“No. No one was outside.”

“You don’t seem at all disturbed to be confronted by a dead man. Women are usually—how do you say?—delicate. They scream or faint at the sight of a corpse.”

“That’s not—”

He interrupted me. “They don’t look so calmly around, notice the door is a bit open, and go investigate.
Vous gardez votre sang froid.
You are very cool.” He raised an eyebrow and glared at me. “But what if the killer
had
been around, Madame Fletcher? Would you know what to do if he pointed a gun at you?”

“Oh, he wasn’t ...” I stopped mid-sentence.

“You were about to say?”

I sighed. “I was about to say that I don’t think Monsieur Bertrand was shot. And I also don’t think that the killer would hang around outside, waiting to be discovered.”

“And why is it, Madame, that you don’t believe the victim was shot? Did you see another murder weapon?”

“No, but I also don’t see any shell casing,” I replied. “And there wasn’t a shell casing outside the door, or anything that could be a murder weapon. I checked. From the hole in his shirt, it looks to me like Chef Bertrand was stabbed, although since I didn’t examine him, I can’t say what the instrument might have been.”

“You intrigue me, Madame,” he said. “You are not, by any chance, a homicide detective?”

“No, but I have made a study of the subject for some time.”

“And why is that?”

“I study murders because I write murder mysteries. That’s how I make my living, Detective ... I’m sorry, I don’t believe you gave me your name.”

“The rank is Inspector, Madame. I am Inspector LeClerq.”

“Inspector LeClerq, while you and I are conversing, the killer could be getting away. Chef Bertrand was alive an hour ago. The person responsible for his death may still be in the hotel. We should be looking for the murder weapon. We’re giving the killer too much time to dispose of the evidence.”

“
We?
” His eyebrows rose. “You seem to think, Madame, that Sergeant Thierry and I are inadequate to the task. That we require your assistance.”

“I didn’t mean to imply....”

“Please allow us to do our job,” he said. “The Avignon
Gendarmerie
is well equipped to investigate all crimes. We can do more than arrest the pickpockets and petty thieves who arrive each summer along with the tourists.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” I said, trying to think how I’d gotten into this argument. I heard my name called.

Mallory raced through the archway from the hall, and drew to a halt at the sight of the two policemen. “Mrs. Fletcher, are you all right?” The American teenager I’d met on the train to Avignon last week had surprised me this morning when she’d shown up in my cooking class. She was a lonely child, drifting around France, perhaps running away from school or home. I meant to find out. Another mystery to solve, but first, this one.”

“Yes, dear. I’m fine.”

“I heard upstairs ...” She was trying to catch her breath. “That there had been a murder.” She shook her head. “You weren’t around.” A deep breath. “I got worried. And they wouldn’t let me downstairs to look for you.”

“Then how did you get here?” LeClerq asked.

Mallory flushed. “There’s a set of stairs from the hotel’s dining room.” She pointed behind her. “It goes to the other end of the hotel kitchen.”

Just then the elevator doors opened and two men entered the room. One was carrying a small case, and the other held a camera with a flash unit.

“It’s getting a bit crowded in this place,” Inspector LeClerq grumbled. “Perhaps you would be good enough to wait upstairs with the others so we may finish our work down here.

Thierry had positioned his body to block Mallory’s view of the chef, but now he moved aside to allow the newcomers to conduct their part of the investigation. Mallory gasped when she glimpsed the lifeless body of Emil Bertrand. “Oh my gosh. Is it him?”

‘I think Inspector LeClerq is right,” I said, taking Mallory’s arm and turning her around. ”We should wait for him upstairs. Why don’t you show me where this other staircase is.”

We walked down the hall to the hotel kitchen, Mallory excitedly burbling about how she had searched for me upstairs and begged the officer guarding the stairwell to let her try the lower floor. I recognized the signs of an adrenaline release. I twould take awhile for her to come down from its intensity. I took her arm as we walked and patted her hand. “You can see, I’m just fine,” I said. “Thank you for worrying about me.”

As we passed the door to the office used by the hotel chefs, I heard a sound, as if something had fallen off a desk or shelf. I put my ear to the wooden panel and my hand on the knob. Someone was inside. I twisted the knob and the door opened. Guy, the
sous-chef
who’d assisted Bertrand this morning, was on his knees, frantically gathering a sheaf of papers and folders that had slid off the overloaded desk.

“Hello,” he said, pressing the folders to his chest. “I’ve got to clean up this mess one of these days. I can’t find anything anymore.”

“Where have you been, Guy?” I asked, wondering if he was trying to shield the front of his uniform from view.

He looked confused. “I went up to my apartment to get the materials for tomorrow’s class, and then I ... and then I came back. There’s a lot of work to do to prepare for these classes. Why do you ask?” He was tripping over his words, not at all the self-assured
sous-chef
from the morning.

“How did you manage to get in here without running into the police upstairs?”

“There are police upstairs?” A few papers slipped out of his grasp and fell to the floor. He made a grab for them.

“Oh, Guy, the most terrible thing,” Mallory began. I squeezed her arm, and she stopped abruptly.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, watching his face closely. I sensed someone behind me and whirled around.

“You’re doing my job again, Madame Fletcher.” The fierce eyes of Inspector LeClerq bored into mine.

My idyllic vacation in Provence was getting off to a rocky start.