Murder in the Rue Dumas: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery (Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mysteries) (23 page)

“Voilà!”

Verlaque looked up as Annie Leonetti handed him a familiar red bag. “Have fun wherever you’re going!”

“
Mille mercis!
” Verlaque said as he took the bag and began walking away. He turned right onto the rue Clémenceau and saw Carole standing in her
tabac’
s doorway. “
Bonsoir, le Juge
,” she said, winking.

He felt doubly foolish, having had a murder suspect buy him three heads of lettuce and now having the lovely Carole see him carrying a leg of ham. “
Bonsoir
Carole!” he answered. He looked ahead and saw Arnaud coming toward him. “I’ve never been happier to see someone!” Verlaque said to him, laughing.

“I dropped off the wine, put a couple bottles of champagne in your freezer, and thought I’d run back down here and help you.”

“Great…thanks,” Verlaque answered, handing Arnaud the
pata negra
. “Carry this for me, if you don’t mind.”

“Some of your friends have arrived already,” Arnaud said, taking the ham. “I let them into your apartment, as instructed. They’ve invited me to stay, providing I try a cigar.”

Verlaque laughed and remembered his first cigar—with his grandfather Charles at their home in Normandy. He had been around the same age that Arnaud was now. It had been an instant love for Verlaque, but he knew that this was rarely the case. His brother Sébastien hated cigars, as did his father.

“You’d be more than welcome.” They walked up the rue Gaston de Saporta and turned right onto the place des Martyrs de la Résistance and then down Verlaque’s small street. He reached into his pocket and got out his own set of keys to open the outer green door to his building. “The guys must be starving,” he said as he and Arnaud ran up the stairs.

“Oh no, don’t worry. One of them bought two big pizzas after he parked his car…you know, that pizza truck across from the Parking Bellegarde that does the wood-fired pizzas. He was in your kitchen, cutting up the pizzas into little pieces, when I left.”

A chorus of “Ooh la la”s was heard as Verlaque and Arnaud entered the apartment, the air already thick with cigar smoke. “
Pata negra
!” a few people called out. Fabrice, the club’s president, yelled, “Bring that animal here, Arnaud! We’ve got the stand all ready and the knives sharpened. They were dull, by the way, Antoine!” Someone handed Verlaque a glass of champagne, and muttering thanks, he downed it.

“Give a glass of champagne to Arnaud, will you?” Verlaque said to no one in particular, yelling over his shoulder as he walked down to his bedroom. “I’m going to change.”

Verlaque smiled as he pulled on his blue jeans. It was a treat to have his apartment full of people—friends—and it reminded him of being at his grandparents’ house in the seventeenth, the frequent party guests a strange mix of artists whom Emmeline had known at art school, business acquaintances of his grandfather Charles’s, and the odd neighbor who had, like Emmeline and
Charles, fallen in love with that treelined street in the most unlikely of Parisian neighborhoods.

“Arnaud is going to Cuba,” José, one of the club’s members, hollered as Verlaque walked back into his living room.

“I know,” Verlaque answered, taking another glass of champagne from his friend Jean-Marc and smiling. “Arnaud saved me this evening, and he’s agreed to clean up this mess, so after our cigars we’ll raise a little tip collection for his trip, okay?”

The group vocalized its approval of this idea and Verlaque walked over to the bar that separated his kitchen from the dining room, where Julien was cutting thin pieces of ham and setting every second piece on a large oval plate and every first piece into his mouth.

“Julien, here, take a break and let me take over,” Virginie, the club’s sole female, said, winking at Verlaque and Jean-Marc. She took the knife from Julien before he could protest and began to quickly and deftly slice the ham. Jacob, an Egyptian Jew who commuted between his finance job in London and Aix, took the platter from Virginie and said, “I may as well pass this around since I can’t eat it. Why don’t you keep slicing and put some more on another plate.”

“There’s salmon, Jacob,” Verlaque said.

“I know, Arnaud already showed it to me when I told him I couldn’t eat this lovely
pata negra
,” Jacob replied, smiling.

“You’re a good worker, Arnaud. I always hire young people who have shown a drive to work,” Jacob said to Arnaud, who was now standing beside Fabrice, who had his arm around the teen.

“I do too!” Fabrice echoed, pulling Arnaud in closer. “I have three daughters and each one worked in my shops after school and during the summer holidays. They never complained.” Fabrice owned a franchise of plumbing stores that had started in Marseille
but now went as far as Menton, just before the Italian border. Arnaud smiled at the two men and nodded, not sure what to say.

“Arnaud is going to try a wide Churchill from Romeo y Julieta now,” Fabrice told the group. “It was one of Che’s favorites,” he told the teen, leaning in and squeezing him again.

At the mention of his hero, the teen lit up. “I’m ready!”

“You snip the end off with these cutters,” Fabrice instructed. Arnaud took the cigar and cutters from the club president and his hands shook.

“Do it for him, Fabrice,” Jacob said.

“Fabrice regrets not having a son, I think,” Jean-Marc whispered to Verlaque. Verlaque smiled and nodded in agreement.

In no time the cigar was snipped, lit, and in Arnaud’s mouth.

“Don’t inhale!” Virginie yelled.

Arnaud coughed and his eyes watered. “I’m not sure about this…” He brought the cigar to his mouth and tried it again, coughing and blowing the smoke out of his mouth as fast as he could.

Fabrice looked over his large belly down at the floor, saddened that his new apprentice was obviously going to take longer than usual to learn how to smoke a cigar. “Good try, Arnaud!” José said, and the other members, except Fabrice, cheered.

Verlaque looked to his side to say something to Jean-Marc, but he was gone. He found Jean-Marc in the kitchen, washing the lettuce. “You’d make someone a good wife,” Verlaque joked.

Jean-Marc smiled and then said, “I’ve been mediating divorces all this week, so please don’t talk of marriage. That institution doesn’t look that great to me right now.” He placed the lettuce in Verlaque’s salad spinner and turned the handle, watching the top spin. “How’s Marine? I haven’t seen her in a few days.”

“I’m going to call her tonight. We got in a fight last time we
saw each other. I insulted Sylvie, and for no good reason, if truth be known. I highly doubt marriage is in our future, so don’t worry.”

Jean-Marc drained the water out of the salad spinner and looked at Verlaque. “Apologies are always gracefully accepted by Marine.”

“You’re right. I was frustrated by this case, I think, and took it out on Sylvie.” He silently made a note to slip into his bedroom before the dessert course and call Marine.

“How was Paris?” Jean-Marc asked.

“Somewhat fruitful. We spoke to the lawyer who has Georges Moutte’s will and discovered that he had a pile of money, at least in one Paris account. And we had a mini-lesson in what constitutes a fake Gallé from a lovely curator at the Petit Palais. She confirmed that one of the Gallé vases the doyen had in his apartment
was
an obvious forgery, and that he probably knew it.”

“Ah, Antoine. Always an eye for the ladies.”

Verlaque looked at Jean-Marc, one of Aix’s most competent lawyers and a reliable and sure friend to both himself and to Marine. He thought it strange that his friend, slim, tall, and broad shouldered, never commented on the women he was dating. Jean-Marc surely must get flirted with all the time, Verlaque thought, given his gentle manner, clear blue eyes, and short-cropped, always perfectly groomed blond hair.

Jean-Marc began ripping the salad and letting the pieces fall into a large glass salad bowl.

“That
is
strange, though,” Jean-Marc said. “Why display a forgery among your treasures unless to say, ‘I know this one is a fake’?”

“Moutte could have displayed that vase to remind himself what a forged Gallé looked like…”

“If he was in the business of forging antiques, yes,” Jean-Marc answered. “Or, Moutte, even knowing it was a fake, couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. It could have been a gift, you know, like those gifts your mother gives you that you don’t like but you hold on to anyway. Best find out, if you can, who gave him that vase.”

Verlaque raised an eyebrow and said, “Hold that thought.” He grabbed his cell phone off of the kitchen counter and texted Paulik and copied Officer Flamant on it. He set the cell phone down and was about to ask Jean-Marc about his love life when another club member entered the room. “Hello, men,” said Pierre, a small-boned bookseller every bit as neat and tidy as Jean-Marc, only dark-haired and about six inches shorter.

“Hey,” Jean-Marc said, smiling. “I was waiting for you…here, try my salad dressing.”

Pierre dipped his finger into the thick, dark yellow sauce that Jean-Marc had just made. “Perfect, as usual.”

Verlaque looked at Pierre and then at Jean-Marc. “You’ve cooked for Pierre before?”

Jean-Marc laughed and gently put a hand on Verlaque’s shoulder. “You sound like a jealous husband!”

“I’m lucky, aren’t I?” Pierre asked, laughing. The judge continued to look back and forth between the two men, whom, he now noticed, were both wearing neatly pressed jeans, expensive leather moccasins, and Lacoste polo shirts. It suddenly became clear to him: their similar looks and interests and the fact that they had both spent a weekend in Barcelona in September and nervously avoided Verlaque’s eyes when he had asked them if they had bumped into each other that weekend.

Verlaque smiled and got a bottle of champagne out of the fridge. “I feel like we should make a toast. How long have you been a couple? And when were you going to tell me?”

“We’re telling you now,” Pierre replied. “We’ve been seeing each other for over a year.” Laughter, José singing a ballad in Spanish, and the sound of Arnaud coughing could be heard coming from the living room.

“We need to rescue that kid,” Verlaque said as he ripped off the aluminum around the bottle’s neck and uncorked the champagne. He grabbed three glasses out of a cupboard and poured out the champagne and toasted his friends. “I’m thrilled for you both. Cheers.”

“It’s an amazing thing when it happens, Antoine,” Jean-Marc said.

Verlaque sipped his champagne and frowned. “When what happens?”

“When you finally meet the love of your life.” Jean-Marc winked at Pierre and the three men raised their glasses and drank.

I
t was after midnight when Verlaque walked into Marine’s apartment. He hung up his coat on her coatrack and saw Marine standing in the doorway, her arms drawn around her chest, dressed in one of his extra-large cotton striped pajama tops and enormous fuzzy pink slippers. He walked across the entryway and hugged her, and when she kissed his cheek he drew her closer to him and held her tighter. She ran her fingers through his thick black hair and he finally leaned back a bit and looked at her. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

Marine pulled away. “You have to learn to be kinder to my friends, especially Sylvie…”

“I will try to handle my temper with Sylvie. It’s none of my business if she sleeps around. I’m sorry.”

“Even Vincent,” Marine continued, her face getting flushed. “Whom I know you think outrageous.”

Verlaque sighed. “As for Vincent, it’s not his being gay that I mind, it’s the over-the-top outrageous bit that bothers me.”

Marine stepped back and looked at her lover. “Are you sure Vincent’s being gay doesn’t bother you?”

Verlaque shook his head. “Rugby players aren’t at all homophobic.”

Marine nodded. “You’re right. Now soccer players, on the other hand…”

“Marine, have you ever wondered about Jean-Marc?”

Marine laughed. “You’ve only just realized? Okay, I’m being unfair, as I didn’t see the signs either until very recently.” She laughed and pulled Verlaque close to her, kissing him on the lips.

“Stop trying to seduce me!” Verlaque said, laughing. “I only just realized this evening…and how long have I known Jean-Marc? I’m stunned!”

“Why are you stunned?” Marine asked. “Does it change Jean-Marc? No. Does it change the way you feel about your friend? No. Why does who he sleeps with interest or surprise you?”

“All right, all right. I guess I was surprised because he never talked about it.”

“Why should he have? I sometimes think that that’s all you think about.”

“Sex? No, you’re wrong.” Verlaque pulled Marine in closer. “I think about wine and cigars too.”

Marine gave him a friendly slap, but the look on her face wasn’t a happy one.

“I’m crazy about you, Marine. You should know that by now.”

Marine still couldn’t bring herself to smile. Verlaque looked closely at the freckles that covered her face, neck, and chest. “If you’re waiting for me to propose,” he said, “it’s…”

“A waste of time,” Marine cut in. “No, I’m not waiting for a proposal. Those kinds of decisions are made by two people these days, Antoine. Even in the late 1950s my parents made that decision
together, there was no kneeling down, no hidden engagement ring…”