Murder in the Rue Dumas: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery (Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mysteries) (30 page)

“I
t’s so green here, so peaceful. It’s easy to imagine Saint Francis in this countryside,” Marine said as she stopped at the side of the road to look at a meadow.

Verlaque’s bicycle bumped into the back wheel of Marine’s. “Warn me when you’re going to stop,” he complained.

Marine turned around and laughed. “Sorry! Are you all right?”

Verlaque took out a pressed handkerchief and mopped his brow. “I don’t know why anyone would choose to go out on one of these things. I can’t believe how uncomfortable the seat is.”

“We look like tourists, which was the goal, right? Especially you, with that cigar.”

They had rented bicycles at a garage that mostly rented out scooters and motorcycles; Marine had spotted it on the way into town. Examining their Michelin map, they had chosen to take the southern route into Bevagna, on a small departmental road instead
of the busier S316 that led to Bevagna out of the northwest corner of Foligno. “That old woman on the bench definitely said ‘south’ of Foligno,” Marine said, pointing on the map.

“We can always do a loop and come back on the S316,” Verlaque suggested, looking at the map with his reading glasses. He sighed and added, “I can’t believe we’re doing this. How long would the circuit be, assuming we have to go to Bevagna and back?”

Marine bit her lips as she looked at the map. “About fourteen kilometers.” She purposely rounded down the estimate a few kilometers.

“That’s around eight or nine miles; doable, but it will be dark when we come back. Well, you lead, dear.”

Marine thought it droll that Verlaque, despite being brought up in France, always thought in miles, like an Englishman, for distances. “Just holler if you need to stop,” she said, beginning to pedal, and smiling to herself. She turned around when she smelled cigar smoke. “It would be easier if you didn’t smoke!”

“It’s hard either way, so I’d rather get a little enjoyment out of it.”

Marine laughed. “At least we’ll look more like tourists with you puffing away.”

They rode on, Marine stopping to take photos with a small camera. “Look at the vineyards in the distance,” she said at one break. “They’re turning red.” She pointed at a small steeple peeking up from a thicket of small trees. “A chapel! I know, I know, we don’t have time to go in.”

Verlaque stopped to catch his breath, thankful that Marine wanted to stop so frequently. His cell phone rang and he answered it, seeing Paulik’s number. They spoke for less than a minute and he hung up and told Marine of Paulik’s theory of the stolen car.

“It’s so much greener than Tuscany, isn’t it?” he said, looking around.

Marine took another photograph. “Yes, more like our bit of Provence.” She put her camera back in her purse, which was sitting in the bicycle’s front basket, and looked ahead, up the narrow road. “There’s a lane up ahead on the left, with a little sign,” she said. “I’ll ride ahead and tell you what it says.”

Verlaque nodded and puffed on his cigar, watching Marine ride off and then cross the deserted road. She got to the small wooden sign and then turned around to Verlaque and gave him a thumbs-up. He rode to meet her.

“Vetro Corvia?” he asked, looking down at the sign. “Is ‘vetro’ what I think it is? Glass?”

“Yes!” Marine exclaimed. “Let’s go down the lane a bit.”

Verlaque watched Marine in admiration as she led the way. They walked their bikes, hugging the left side of the laneway, and stopped in less than twenty meters. A small concrete-block building with a corrugated metal roof stood in front of them. There was a car parked in front of it, a beat-up older-edition Fiat 500, and a light was on in the building.

“Let’s hide behind this toolshed,” Verlaque whispered, putting out his cigar. “And hope he, she, or they haven’t seen us.”

“And I hope they don’t smell the smoke!” Marine hissed.

They laid their bikes down in a thicket and crouched down, leaning their backs against the small brick toolshed. Marine looked at the photos she had just taken on her camera, and Verlaque watched the clouds race across the darkening sky. He checked his messages before turning off his cell phone, and there was one from Officer Flamant: “I just met with A. Zacharie’s bank manager. Mlle Z made several deposits, each one 5,000 euros, beg in Sept and ending Nov 1. She also made a dep of 10,000 euros Monday afternoon. Tomorrow we’re meeting with an accountant
from another department who has been called in to help. Best, A. Flamant.” Verlaque showed the message to Marine.

A door closed and they instinctively froze, listening. The car door opened and closed, and the car started, backed up, and drove down the lane, turning—Verlaque saw through the bushes—toward Foligno.

“Let’s go look around,” he whispered, getting up and then pulling Marine up with his hand.

The building’s small, multipaned windows were dirty with layers of dust, making it difficult to see anything inside the studio. “The door is locked,” Marine said, twisting the handle. “Let’s walk around and see if we can open a window.”

Verlaque looked at her in surprise but quickly decided that it was worth the risk. There were no windows on the east side of the building, but a window in the back, high up, was without the iron bars that the other windows had. Verlaque rolled an old, rusted iron barrel and set it upright against the wall. “Do you think you can stand up on this and then try to open the window and slip in? You’re considerably thinner than I am.”

Marine said nothing but put her hand on his shoulder and with his help got on top of the barrel. She reached up and pulled on the right side of the window. “Nothing,” she said, looking down at Verlaque. She then pulled on the left, and the window budged slightly. She pulled harder and the entire left-hand side of the window almost fell into the building, Marine stopping it just in time from coming off its track.

“Well done,” Verlaque whispered. “Can you see in?”

“Yes, although it’s dark without the light on. If you boost me up, I can slip in and fall into the room.” She heaved
herself up more and stuck her head through the open window. “It looks like there’s a beat-up sofa just below!”

Verlaque nodded, pushed Marine’s buttocks, and she heaved herself up by her trembling arms and then fell below. “Okay!” she said from within the building. Verlaque saw that she had turned on the lights and he quickly walked around to the front door.

“Are you okay?” he asked as she opened the door for him.

“I’m fine, I landed on that sofa, although it hardly has any springs left.” She rubbed her right arm.

“Let’s be careful not to leave any traces of our presence,” Verlaque said, putting his arm around Marine, kissing her forehead, and closing the door behind him.

“What are we looking for?” she asked. “Links to Rocchia?”

“Yes, and/or Moutte. Let’s hope they have left a paper trail…receipts, letters, that kind of thing.”

They separated, each looking on opposite sides of the studio, which was surprisingly small. Glass objects covered every flat surface and existed in various forms, from small colorful animals to large, clear vases. Verlaque took out his handkerchief and tried to open a metal filing cabinet but it was locked. “Too bad Bruno isn’t here,” he whispered to Marine, who had come over to his side. “He could open this and close it again, not leaving a trace.”

Marine wandered over to a desk and carefully sat down on its chair. She grabbed a Rolodex and flipped through the cards, one by one, but didn’t find Rocchia’s or Moutte’s name anywhere. The desk was covered with a large paper calendar from a hardware store in Foligno. She leaned down, her chin resting on the palms of her hands, and looked at the doodles on the calendar’s first page. There, in the top right-hand corner, under a drawing of a small dog with pointy ears, were the initials “GR” and a telephone number.

“Antoine, come here,” she whispered. “Do you have Rocchia’s phone number in your cell phone?”

Verlaque put on his reading glasses and saw the initials and
phone number. “I have his cell phone number and home number in Perugia.” He took out his phone from his jacket pocket and searched for Rocchia’s name and then glanced down again at the scribbled number. “That’s Rocchia’s cell phone. Perfect.”

“You’ll need that piece of paper as evidence,” Marine said.

Verlaque shrugged and tore off the November page, folded it, and put it in his pocket. “It’s December now,” he said, looking down at the new page. “With any luck, they’ll think that someone else in the shop tore off the page to get to December. Better get cracking on those Christmas orders!”

They opened drawers in the desk and sifted through a small pile of papers but couldn’t find anything else linking Rocchia to the Vetro Corvia. “It’s not as if we’re going to find a receipt that says ‘three fake Gallés to the order of Giuseppe Rocchia,’” Marine said.

“I know,” Verlaque answered. “Plus it’s getting dark. Let’s get back to Foligno while we still have a bit of light. We’ll close the window and lock the front door when we leave. It won’t be double-bolted, since we don’t have a key, so they’ll know someone was in here.”

“Or they may think that they locked the door but forgot to double-lock it on the way out. I do that sometimes at home.”

Verlaque jumped up on the sofa and pulled the window shut, and turning off the lights, they walked out of the building and collected their bicycles, riding off in the direction of Foligno. They hadn’t gone far when Verlaque, who was riding behind, said, “Car behind us, Marine! Get far over to the right.”

The car slowed down when it approached the cyclists, then moved over as if to pass, but instead of passing the car drove beside Verlaque and Marine. Two men were in the newer-model black Lancia, and they looked at the cyclists, then slowed down and
stayed behind Verlaque. “What’s their problem?” Verlaque called out to Marine. He motioned with his hand for them to pass. Again, the car drove up beside them and the passenger, who wore Ray-Ban sunglasses despite dusk setting in, looked at Verlaque, then turned and said something to the driver, and they finally passed.

“That gave me the willies,” Marine called over her shoulder to Verlaque.

Verlaque didn’t reply as they watched the car slow down, turn into a driveway, and begin to turn around. Marine continued riding and instinctively veered her bicycle to the right, forcing it through a narrow gap in the stone wall that surrounded the chapel they had seen earlier. Verlaque followed, and they jumped off their bikes and ran, holding on to the handlebars, toward the chapel. In silence they parked their bikes behind the chapel and ran to the front door, which was mercifully open.

The inside of the chapel was almost dark and smelled of wax. “Let’s go to the front,” Verlaque said, taking Marine’s hand. “I’m not sure they could see the chapel from the road in a car, and there’s that small side road they might go down looking for us.” He didn’t want to admit that they were sitting ducks in the chapel alone. Marine’s heart raced and she was about to speak when they both heard a car door close. Verlaque held on to Marine. They could just barely see each other, and would not be seen from the front door. The sound of footsteps coming up the path was heard, the doorknob turned, and the front door opened. The visitor coughed, moved a few feet into the church, and then turned on the lights, coughed again, and then switched them off. The front door quickly closed, and both Marine and Verlaque heard very clearly the sound of a key turning in the lock.

“That wasn’t the guys in the car, was it?” Marine whispered.

“
Merde.
I bet it was the caretaker.” Verlaque looked at the lit-up time on his cell phone: 6:05 p.m. “He probably closes up at six.”

They ran to the front door and pulled at the metal door latch, knowing it was locked but double-checking nonetheless. Marine called out and ran to the light switch and turned the lights on and off a half dozen times, hoping to get the caretaker’s attention. They heard the car backing away down a gravel road. “There must be a way in here by another road,” Marine said.

Verlaque gasped. “Look at this place.”

Marine left the lights on and turned around to look at the chapel’s white walls, every inch covered in small rectangular paintings. They moved closer to one and saw that they were not paintings but majolica earthenware plaques, each one painted in glorious colors—greens and bright yellows—similar to the dinnerware of the region.

“They’re ex-votos,” Marine whispered. “Giving thanks to God, or Jesus, or Mary, for being saved from some threat…illness, accidents, et cetera. I’ve only seen ex-voto paintings, never ceramics.”

Verlaque slipped his reading glasses on. “Look. This guy is flying off his motorcycle. Look at that vintage bike!”

Marine moved along the wall. “This woman is sick,” she said. “Her children are gathered around her, crying. The perspective is totally off. It’s so charming.”

“Wine barrels!” Verlaque almost shouted. “The winemaker is about to get crushed by wine barrels falling off his truck! These are amazing!”

Marine snapped a few photos. “I have to show Sylvie these. She loves folk art.”

They stayed silent for a few minutes, moving along the walls,
looking at each plaque. Marine then sat down on a wooden pew and Verlaque came and sat down beside her. “We’re in a bit of a fix,” he said, smiling.

Marine laughed. “You could say that. We need to call someone to get us out, or sleep here until the caretaker comes back tomorrow morning.”

Verlaque pulled the Palazzo Trinci curator’s business card out of his jacket.

“But I don’t trust him!” Marine exclaimed.

“Marine, he’s the only person we know around here.” Verlaque slipped on his reading glasses and called Dottore Camorro’s phone number.

“Pronto,” Camorro answered on the third ring.

Marine took the phone and explained in Italian where they were. She did not mention the black car, or, naturally, the glassworks.

“Ah, the chapel with the ceramic ex-votos. Don’t worry, I’ll be right there. I know the caretaker and can get his phone number from one of the security guards here at the museum…they’re cousins.” Marine frowned, as she was sure that the Dottore spoke to someone else in his office. “Sit tight,” he continued, “I just have to drop my son off at his karate lesson, get ahold of the caretaker, and then drive out with him to the chapel. I’ll be as quick as I can.”