Murder in the Rue Dumas: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery (Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mysteries) (31 page)

“Grazie mille,” Marine said, hanging up the phone.

Marine and Verlaque wandered around the chapel for another half hour until Verlaque went and sat down. “I’m on ex-voto overload,” he said, taking off his shoes and putting his jacket on the pew to act as a pillow. He stretched out and closed his eyes while Marine continued to take photos.

Verlaque woke up to the sound of a car and then voices outside
the chapel. He sat up and looked for Marine, who was fast asleep on a pew opposite his. He quickly put on his shoes and called, “Marine! They’re here!” He walked toward the front door, putting his jacket on as he walked.

“We’re here!” Dottore Camorro called. The noise of a key turning in the latch was heard and the door opened, Camorro the first to enter. Marine stood up and quickly walked toward the door, almost bumping into the men who followed the curator into the chapel. It was the driver of the black Lancia, and his passenger.

V
erlaque grabbed Marine’s hand and pulled her close to him as Marine blurted out in Italian, “You’re in this together! I knew it!”

Dottore Camorro smiled, but only slightly. “Yes, Dottore Bonnet, but not as you think.”

The passenger of the Lancia reached into his jacket and pulled out an Italian state police identification badge. “I’m Dottore Sylvio Donadio, and this is my colleague Sergeant Tramenti. We work in the Guardia di Finanza’s division for the Protection of Archaeological Patrimony in Rome, and have been following Giuseppe Rocchia’s movements for some months. We’ve linked him to an extensive network of fraudulent art glass sales, as I believe you have as well. Dottore Camorro has been advising us in the investigation and called us as soon as you left his office this afternoon. I do hope, for the sake of our investigation”—Dottore Donadio paused and sighed heavily—“that you haven’t trespassed onto the premises of Vetro Corvia.”

Marine looked at Verlaque and stayed silent. Verlaque replied in English, “I’m afraid we did, Dottore, but we left no signs of our presence except the fact that we couldn’t double-bolt the door, as we had no key.” He still didn’t know if he wanted to show them Rocchia’s phone number from the calendar page.

Donadio nodded at Sergeant Tramenti, who quickly left the chapel. “We have a key,” Donadio explained in accented English. “My colleague will go and lock the door properly. Now, what right did you have to go into that building? Do you realize that you may have jeopardized months of hard work and put yourselves at risk as well? And did you find anything in the studio that perhaps we Italian police overlooked?” Donadio sighed and raised his eyebrows to the curator, who folded his arms and looked angrily at Verlaque, waiting for an answer.

“First, I apologize that we broke into the studio; we had no idea that the glassworks was being investigated,” Verlaque said.

“A few phone calls would have answered that question, Judge Verlaque,” Donadio said.

“Secondly,” Verlaque continued, “we found Rocchia’s initials, and his cell phone number, written down on a piece of paper.”

Donadio flashed a look of surprise. “Really? We just looked over everything in the studio yesterday. We found no such thing.”

“It could have been written down today,” Marine replied in Italian. “At first it looked like a…” She searched for the word in Italian. “A doodle.”

Verlaque handed Donadio the folded calendar page and the policeman unfolded it and looked at it, smiling. “This is the number of one of Rocchia’s cell phones,” he said. “While we’re waiting for my partner to return, perhaps we could sit down and you can tell me why you thought it necessary to come to Umbria, unannounced, and break and enter where you see fit.”

“I’m working on a murder case,” Verlaque said. He was beginning to get angry over the policeman’s tone of voice. “Two murder cases, in fact,” he added. “Rocchia is one of my chief suspects, and he’s lied about his alibi for the night of the first murder. He said that he was at home with his wife in Perugia, but she has just told me that she was in fact not even there.”

Dottore Donadio raised his eyebrows. “Signora Rocchia told you this?”

“Yes. She’s willing to testify.”

“I’m happy that she has, how do you say…‘seen the light’? But that doesn’t mean that he is guilty of murder,” Donadio replied. “When Sergeant Tramenti returns we’ll check Rocchia’s movements and whereabouts on our computer. What night was it?”

“Last Friday,” Verlaque replied. “The murder happened in the middle of the night, the victim was a professor but also a specialist in the glass of Gallé.”

“Ah, art nouveau glass from Nancy,” Dottore Camorro said. “What was the victim’s name? I’ve forgotten.”

“Georges Moutte,” Verlaque replied. “Does it mean anything to you, Dottore Donadio?”

Donadio looked as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. “Dottore Moutte? The theologian?”

Verlaque and Marine said yes in unison and Donadio began quickly whispering to Camorro in Italian. Verlaque nudged Marine forward so that she could listen and she brushed his hand aside, annoyed. Of course she was going to try and listen! What did he think? After a few seconds she gasped, looking at Dottore Donadio. “What?” she asked. “You knew him? You used the word ‘informant.’”

“Yes, he was our informant,” Donadio answered. “As one of Europe’s glass experts, and as a colleague of Giuseppe Rocchia, he provided us with expert advice.”

Verlaque was now the one to raise his voice. “If he was your informant, why didn’t you even realize that he was murdered?!”

“We had phone interviews with Dr. Moutte set up only once a week, every Friday night. We were going to call him later. We had no reason to suspect anything since last week.”

“It seems to me that you could have called us, as you suggested we should have done,” Verlaque said. He remembered Paulik telling him that the call Moutte had received a week ago Friday came from Italy but couldn’t be traced. Now he knew why—it was an unlisted number.

Donadio smiled weakly and then his shoulders relaxed. “You’re right; we both should have called each other’s local police. Please, let’s sit down.”

Sitting on opposite pews, with Marine and Verlaque turned around to face the Italians, Verlaque continued speaking. “Your investigation is very extensive for some forged early twentieth-century glass.”

Donadio looked at Verlaque and answered, “It’s more than glass, Judge Verlaque.”

Verlaque leaned forward over the back of the pew and asked, “They deal in other antiquities as well?”

“Yes, they’ve begun stealing and selling, or forging and selling, precious religious objects from our churches and museums. This chapel itself was broken into several years ago. We lost many of the ex-votos, and thanks to our investigations, with the help of Dottore Camorro, almost half of the artworks have been recovered, while some others have been expertly reproduced. Rocchia’s name keeps popping up, but we don’t have enough evidence to charge him. We take these crimes against our heritage very seriously, Judge.”

“As you should,” Verlaque replied. “Dr. Moutte was killed, hit over the head, by an object that my pathologist tells me is wooden,
and over seven hundred years old. Does this mean anything to you?”

“The Pisano,” Sergeant Tramenti, who had just walked into the chapel and overheard Verlaque’s question, said.

Donadio nodded. “Yes. A rare Andrea Pisano sculpture in ivory, but it has a large wooden base; it’s a Madonna and child that stands about a foot high, stolen from a monastery in Sicily last year. It’s priceless; Andrea Pisano sculpted the doors of Florence’s cathedral. Marco, could you look
up Rocchia’s whereabouts a week ago, last Friday night?” Sergeant Tramenti went back to the car and brought with him a tiny computer and opened it and turned it on. While they were waiting for the computer to start up, Donadio told his sergeant of Moutte’s death. Within a few minutes Tramenti had the information they needed. “He was at home, in Perugia,” he said.

“How do you know? Are you watching the house?” Verlaque asked.

Tramenti answered, “We’re watching the outside, yes, but the inside is being covered by someone working for us. She’s the new maid. Rocchia was there all night, she reports.”

Donadio turned to Verlaque and Bonnet. “That gets Rocchia off the hook.”

There was silence, then Donadio continued, almost whispering. “We are certain that Rocchia was behind the theft. The statue belonged to an elderly priest in Ragusa, and Rocchia had visited him the same week that the statue went missing. Giuseppe Rocchia operated in this way, visiting the faithful elderly. Since the victims were old they often didn’t notice the theft until days or weeks after, giving Rocchia plenty of time to sell the artwork. With that theft we do have a weak link to France, however.” Donadio turned to Tremanti and asked, “Marco, could you look up that phone call we listened to just after Rocchia came back from Sicily?” Verlaque and Marine exchanged glances. Although as examining magistrate Verlaque was permitted to wiretap, he seldom did.

Tramenti pressed a few keys on his computer and waited. “Sorry,” he said, shrugging. “This church has a lousy connection.” The group, fatigued and stressed, all laughed. “Here we go,” he continued, squinting at the screen. “The call was made to a number in Aix-en-Provence, belonging to Signor Bernard Rodier. In their conversation, which mainly involved Rocchia complaining about the food at the conference, Rocchia asks, quote, ‘Is the item I gave you at the conference in Turin safe?’ unquote. This Bernard Rodier answered, quote, ‘Yes, it’s in my office,’ unquote.”

There was now a touch of impatience in Verlaque’s voice. “Why didn’t you call us in Aix?”

It was Tramenti who spoke up. “The call was made on Rocchia’s cell phone, and there was traffic in the background. We could hardly make out what either man was saying. The recording has only just been cleaned up by our guys in the tech lab in Rome. They were supposed to call your police headquarters in Aix, in fact, this afternoon. They may have, and you just haven’t been told yet; or they may not have, given they’re Roman…”

“Even so,” Marine said. “As you said, it’s a weak link, this telephone conversation linked to the stolen Pisano.” She somehow felt an urge to protect Dr. Rodier, or any of her mother’s other colleagues, although the pain in her stomach told her that one of them may be guilty.

Dottore Donadio raised an eyebrow. “I agree, but passing a stolen sculpture off on an unsuspecting colleague at a conference where he’ll have to cross a border would have been highly convenient for Rocchia. Not that there are customs officials at the
border between Italy and France anymore, but there could have been. Do you know this Rodier?”

“Yes,” Verlaque answered, looking at Donadio and then Marine.

“I do too,” Marine said. “He works with my mother in the Theology Department.”

“Trustworthy?” Donadio asked.

Marine nodded. “Yes. If I had something to hide or get rid of quickly, I would give it to Bernard Rodier. He’s dependable, quiet, and…”

Donadio leaned in and waited for Marine to finish her sentence.

“And just a tiny bit naive. He’s also a devoted follower of the Cistercians, who as you know reject wealth, so a sculpture of value would be of no interest to him. Rocchia would have been leaving the Pisano in safe hands. But what Rocchia probably didn’t know is that people are in and out of the Theology Department daily. The buildings are in dire condition, and the
facultés
, including my Department of Law, are understaffed. Anyone could have taken the statue from Bernard’s office.”

Verlaque thought to himself that what Marine said was very true. Thierry and Yann had easily broken into the humanities building. However, he wasn’t quite ready to let Bernard Rodier off the hook. People change, especially when in possession of priceless art. Rodier could have since sold the statue; he’d call Paulik this evening and have him demand a search of Rodier’s bank account. And was this the murder weapon? Why kill someone with a Pisano statue? He finally said, “We’ll head back to Aix tomorrow morning and arrange to meet Dr. Rodier in his office at the end of the day. We’ll call you as soon as we have any information on the statue’s whereabouts.”

The group exchanged business cards and Marine was wondering
where they would get a warm shower and clean bed that evening. As if reading her thoughts, Dottore Camorro spoke up. “There is a very nice
enoteca
in Foligno that rents out a few rooms upstairs. Would you like me to call them and see if any rooms are available? We can leave the bicycles here and deal with them tomorrow.”

Marine looked at Verlaque. “A wine bar that rents out rooms sounds perfect. And your wines are so hard for us to buy in France,” Verlaque answered.

“Ah, the French protect their wines as the Italians do. It’s hard for us to buy French wines as well, except for champagne,” Camorro said, smiling.

“This statue,” Verlaque said, turning back to the policemen, “how old is it? Will I know it when I see it?”

Tramenti turned his computer toward Marine and Verlaque. “Here’s a poor-quality photograph of it that Father Rossellino had taken last year. You’ll recognize it, yes.”