Murder on the Mediterranean (Capucine Culinary Mystery) (17 page)

T
hey arrived at L’Hôtel a few minutes before six. Alexandre had spent much of the ride to Paris on one of Capucine’s cell phones, calling cronies, using his pull to secure them a small suite at L’Hôtel under the name Estouffade.

Alexandre checked in with ebullient good spirits, providing a cash deposit instead of a credit card number, just like a prosperous provincial farmer showing off. As he signed the register, he repeatedly blew puffs at the mustache to keep stray hairs from tickling his lip. The pretty woman in a dark suit behind the desk assumed the deadpan face of a novice poker player with an exceptional hand and took frequent peeks at Capucine out of the corner of her eye. It was clear she was having a hard time suppressing her giggles.

Capucine had not set foot in L’Hôtel in years. The atrium, narrow and deep as a well, brought back memories not only of her youth but also of
Paris Match
photos of famous rock groups leaning over the balustrades of the top floors, making funny faces. Capucine and Alexandre’s room was decorated with cubist furniture made entirely of mirrors. It had a thirties charm, Capucine told herself, she would find amusing for exactly one night.

The restaurant was exactly as she remembered, a heavy rococo caricature, dripping with brocade drapes and hooded lamps, awash in a sea of red velvet and striped silk. They sat facing each other on wide green silk-covered settees, nestled into throw pillows, separated by a diminutive round table inlaid in veneer. The fare was classic one-star haute cuisine. Alexandre chose veal sweetbreads in a dried chanterelle herb broth, and Capucine the wild pigeon in a
sauce diable.
The plating of both dishes was melodramatic, amorphous foams providing the ubiquitous molecular cuisine touch.

Alexandre was back in his element. Capucine could see him framing a review and lamented that it would go unpublished for quite some time. “This is an institution that has been able to hang on to its niche for a good many decades,” Alexandre said, punctuating the utterance with a puff at his mustache.

They both looked around the room. There were a handful of Parisians in exorbitant casual attire and a greater number of English people, the men in brocaded waistcoats and luxuriously flowing locks and the women in designer harem pants under silken blouses open to their navels. They all smacked of the world of music or fashion.

“How glorious to be home again,” Alexandre said, cheerfully blowing at his mustache.

The next day, Capucine abandoned Alexandre to his mustache and wandered around Serge’s part of the Marais, visiting his restaurants to see if she could come up with any news of his whereabouts. She was tranquil that her new hairdo would safeguard her anonymity.

Her first stop was a restaurant-café on the rue Vieille-du-Temple in the Marais, not far from her apartment. It was a bijou place that had been in business for over a hundred and fifty years. The tiny bar was U-shaped, corralling two bartenders, who supplied drinks and snacks to the artsy crowd until the small hours of the morning. At night the bar was invariably packed tight as the rush-hour Metro.

She arrived at the restaurant-café at eleven and sat outside, at one of the four round marble-topped tables on the sidewalk. She was the only customer on the terrace. The waitress, a pretty young girl with long pale chestnut hair, so clean-looking and light it bounced when she walked, came out to take her order. Capucine had never seen her before; she’d never been there during daylight hours before.

When the waitress returned with Capucine’s express, Capucine smiled at her in thanks and asked, “Has Serge Monnot been in yet today? I was hoping to see him.”

“The owner? I’ve been working here for a year, and the only time I’ve seen him was when he interviewed me. I think he comes in only at night. Anyway, someone told me he’s on vacation and he won’t be back until September. And why should he?”

She looked in at the bar. Capucine followed her gaze. It was completely deserted.

“This place is a wasteland in August. I don’t know why Monsieur Monnot bothers to keep it open. He should close down for August like everyone else.”

Capucine crossed the street to another
restaurant-café
owned by Serge. This one was essentially a bookstore with a long mahogany bar. Capucine sat on a stool and ordered another coffee. While it was being prepared, she wandered around the long room, examining the titles. The selection leaned heavily to avant-garde poetry and aggressive postmodern literature. Capucine picked up a slim book of poems and returned to the bar. She had also come here frequently with Alexandre for nightcaps. Patrons with books in their hands were a common enough sight, but she had never seen anyone actually buy one.

The bar girl was even more attractive than the waitress across the street. She wore her dark blond hair crinkled in waves cut so it formed an equilateral triangle with a flat base. The hair provided a dramatic frame for her face.

“Vénus Khoury-Ghata,” the bar girl said, nodding at the book in Capucine’s hands. “A genius. She won the Goncourt for poetry last year. One of the great visionaries of our century.”

Capucine had scanned two or three of the poems. She was unable to concentrate enough to get into the verse. She slapped the book down on the table. The bar girl looked up in alarm.

“You don’t really want to buy it, do you?”

Capucine smiled at her and shook her head. The bar girl seemed relieved.

“Actually, I was hoping to run into Serge Monnot.”

“He’s on vacation. He won’t be back until September.”

Her penetrating amber eyes told a story involving hurt. Capucine guessed that this one had seen Serge a good bit after the initial interview.

She had a similar result at her third stop, a restaurant a hundred yards up the rue Vieille-du-Temple, which was just setting up for lunch. The restaurant, usually packed with upwardly mobile under-thirties, was deserted. It specialized in what Alexandre called Italian light: salads with pine nuts and crumbled mozzarella, white pizzas, anything perceived to be nonfattening. As she walked in, Capucine noticed that the pizza oven had not even been turned on. It really was a mystery why Serge kept his restaurants open in August.

Her interlocutor this time around was a male, with long, lightly gelled black hair, swept away from his face to end in little swirls at the nape of his neck.

“Nah, we never see Serge in the summer. My guess is that he just keeps these places open in July and August so they don’t get broken into. We do a little dinner business, but the guys who work in the two bars down the street are bored out of their minds.”

Capucine had one last idea. She walked down the rue Sainte-Croix de la Brétonnerie to the corner of rue des Archives. This was the heart of the gay quartier of the Marais. She ducked into a huge magazine shop that prided itself on its range of international publications. She pulled a copy of
Vogue Italia
out of a rack and thumbed through it while peering out the picture window at a large restaurant-café on the opposite corner. The terrace tables were packed with muscular men in skimpy wife-beater tank tops, their multihued tattoos undulating over rippling muscles.

Serge was sitting at a table on the corner with two other men. All three of them wore light linen summer jackets, setting them apart from the more roughly dressed patrons at surrounding tables. One of Serge’s companions was slightly effeminate; the other looked like he divided his spare time between the gym and running marathons.

Capucine had heard Serge mention this café several times during the trip and had divined that it was his next target for acquisition. If it was, it was hardly surprising he was having difficulty getting the Mafia as a co-investor, if that was really what he was up to.

Capucine flipped through fashion magazines in foreign languages while peeping over their tops at Serge. The threesome consumed two more coffees and went through a range of facial expressions and body language: conciliation, new differences, masked animosity, and finally, grudging agreement. After half an hour, hands were shaken and backs thumped. Serge stood up, expressionless, and began to cross the street in Capucine’s direction. Halfway across the street—invisible to his companions—he broke into a broad smile. Capucine put her last magazine back in its rack and went to the glass door of the shop. With perfect timing she rushed out and collided with Serge.

There was a scene of irritation instantly replaced by recognition, happy greetings, and “What have you done with your hair?” questions.

“Buy me lunch,” Capucine offered.

“With pleasure,” Serge said. “But not around here. I know just the place.”

He took her to a restaurant in an enormous room with a high dome, not unlike a church. The height of the dome and surrounding ceiling created a cool, half-lit, very welcome break from the August midday heat.

“This used to be a ‘Chez Ma Tante,’ you know, a nineteenth-century pawn shop. I love the term. You took your brooch or whatever to ‘your aunt’s.’ ”

When the food came—
salades composées
and a carafe of white wine—Serge said, “How amazing we ran into each other like this. I’m in Paris incognito. I’ve been negotiating my next restaurant, and I don’t want any distractions.”

“And, of course, you’re going to keep your target a secret,” Capucine said with her best smile.

Serge shot her a shrewd look. “Just this morning I reached a handshake agreement with the current owner, but it’s nothing to gloat about. There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip in this sort of thing. Particularly in this deal. The establishment in question is almost the high temple of a cause, and there’s potentially a good deal of unhappiness if it falls into the hands of a nonmember of that cause.” He smiled sweetly at Capucine. “I hope that’s ambiguous enough to make everything perfectly clear.”

“It is,” Capucine said with a laugh.

“Actually, I was going to call you,” Serge said. “What happened to the investigation of the death of that poor girl, Nathalie? Did the French police decide to investigate the case, or will the French and Italians bounce it back and forth until everyone just forgets about it?”

“As far as I know, the French police have yet to receive a communiqué from the Italians,” Capucine fibbed.

“Typical. It’s always the same. Do you think we’ll ever find out what happened to her?”

“My guess is that the investigation will be dropped.” Capucine paused. Serge avoided her gaze, over-scrutinizing the restaurant. “Actually,” Capucine said, “if the French police ever get around to an investigation, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Why me? I hardly knew Nathalie.”

“You knew her before the rest of us did. You hired her. You’re the first person any flic would interview.”

Serge intensified his examination of the restaurant. “Some guy in the yacht charter office recommended her. A paid hand is always a godsend on these charters. I met her on the dock—it wasn’t even an interview, just a quick chat—and I hired her. I don’t think that really counts as ‘knowing her.’ ”

“And you were with her in Bonifacio when we all went up the hill to dinner.”

“That’s true enough. I gave her a list of things to buy for the boat and then headed up the stairs to meet you all in the upper village.”

“It must have been a long list. You almost missed lunch altogether.”

Serge laughed. “That was because I ran into the port
capitaine
as he was coming out of the capitainerie. I’ve know the guy for years. He took me for an apéro at the B’ Fifty-Two. I’m afraid our apéro turned into drinks with lots of canapés on the side. I only went up the hill not to be rude.”

Capucine said nothing. The food arrived. They talked about other things. Toward the end of the meal, Capucine said, “I’ve always wondered what happened while we were at lunch. Nathalie seemed very relaxed, almost happy, when we were on watch that night.”

Serge shrugged, indifferent.

“We’ll see what the police make of it, if it ever becomes an official case,” Capucine said. “Thank God I won’t be investigating. It’s the sort of case that is impossible to solve. The investigating officers always look bad.”

I
nès glowered at the young man sitting across her desk. Proletarian as she liked to believe herself, it took an effort not to curl her lip. He wore an oddly colored, ill-fitting summer suit with a lustrous polyester sheen. Her eyes traveled down his unpressed leg. He was wearing white socks over scuffed black shoes. White socks like a schoolboy! Inès was the last person on earth to believe that civil servants should be subjected to a dress code, but standing out in a crowd was inconsistent with police work.

The man selected one of his four thick notebooks, flipped through to the right page, put it on his lap, and looked at Inès with the eagerness of a dog about to receive a treat. Inès’s frown deepened.

She had made a mistake. This was the wrong man to have picked. Probably any officer from the fiscal brigade would have been a mistake, but this one took the cake. DGPJ, Police Judiciaire headquarters, had first offered her a commissaire from La Crim’. He had come across as an unshaven bully, the last person sensitive enough to win over Madame Tottinguer and coax a story out of her. Lieutenant Lambert had been their next proposal. She had worked with him a few times. He knew finance for sure, but she had had no idea he was so inept with people.

“How did you make out with Madame Tottinguer?” Inès asked.

“Quite well. It was a very positive interview. She was very frank and open.”

Inès nodded. “So she confirmed her decision to bring charges against her husband?”

“Not at all. She’s decided to drop the case.”

“What?” Inès sat up straight.

“Yes. Her husband’s been sending her flowers every day with notes apologizing for his conduct. He claims he panicked when she pointed the shotgun at him, and didn’t know what he was doing.”

“What about the concierge? Did you see her? What did she have to say?”

“Apparently, the Tottinguers are model residents of the building. Not the slightest peep comes out of their apartment. This was the first incident, and it wasn’t even really an incident. The man on the second floor who called the police overreacted.”

Inès’s frown deepened.

“Did you see this man?”

“Oui, Madame le Juge. He’s a geriatric. In his eighties, at the least. He doesn’t remember a thing. His wife thinks he must have heard their cat push a sugar canister off a shelf onto the floor. I saw the cat. A little trickster, that one. My cat does the same sort of thing. In the middle of the night, for no reason at all, she’ll just push something off a table. It’s cute, but sometimes it can be a bit ir—”

“So you have nothing?”

“Au contraire, Madame le Juge, I’ve put together a team, and we’re compiling a list of all the short sells of EADS stock since the creation of the company. It’s early days, of course.” Lieutenant Lambert smiled in self-satisfaction. “But even at this preliminary stage, the banque Tottinguer is close to the head of the list. I have high hopes we will get very useful results from this investigation.” He looked at Inès, expecting praise.

Inès scowled.

“Listen to me very carefully, Lieutenant. Tomorrow morning, early, Lieutenant,” Inès said, “I want Madame Tottinguer here, in this office, sitting right where you are sitting now. If she refuses to come, you will send a squad car and have her picked up. Is that perfectly clear?”

As far as Inès could tell, Madame Tottinguer was the standard-issue Auteuil-Neuilly-Passy mindless rich bitch who cared only about her clothes and her dinner parties. Well scrubbed, with too many teeth in her mouth, she hid her nervousness at being in the office of a juge d’instruction well. There was no sign of a tight throat or a dry mouth, which was the reaction Inès was used to from the majority of people she interviewed.

Madame Tottinguer made a show of having fully regained her composure and crossed her long legs at the ankles. Inès noticed she was wearing stockings. In the middle of August. That must be a sign of something, but Inès had no idea what.

“I’m investigating a series of transactions conducted by your husband’s bank, which appear to have been based on insider information. As I’m sure you know, that’s a very serious crime.”

Madame Tottinguer did not react in the slightest. Inès wondered if she had understood.

“Some of these transactions were conducted by a small holding company in the Channel Island of Jersey of which you are listed as a director. I’d like to talk to you about that.”

“The Channel Islands? Are you sure? That can’t be right. I’ve never been there.”

Inès opened a thin file and extracted an official-looking piece of paper, which she put on the desk in front of her. She tapped it twice with her fingernail.

“Yes, it was opened four years ago.”

Bored, Alexandra Tottinguer shrugged her shoulders. “Does this have something to do with taxes? If it does, you’ll have to ask my husband. I know nothing about our money matters.”

“Your husband . . .” Inès let the words trail off. The effect went unnoticed.

Inès pulled another sheet from the file, placed it on top of the first one, and gave it a similar tap. Again, the gesture failed to produce a result.

“Your husband was detained last week for attempting to kill you with a shotgun. Would you like to tell me about that?”

Madame Tottinguer laughed. While not entirely joyous, it was carefree enough for any social occasion.

“Our concierge’s husband is very fond of his Calvados. Actually, occasionally, it can be a bit of a problem. He’s been known to roam in the middle of the night, ranting. One or two people in the building would like to get rid of them, but I don’t agree. That would be wrong.” She was earnest. “The concierge is very devoted to the building, and she would have a very hard time finding another job.” She looked disappointed when Inès did not nod her agreement.

“You see, what must have happened is that the concierge’s husband heard my husband come home late from a business dinner, probably making a bit of noise, misunderstood, and called the police.” Madame Tottinguer smiled to ensure Inès’s empathy.

“But there were reports that a gun had been fired.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

“And also that you fled your apartment to seek refuge at your sister’s.”

Madame Tottinguer chortled. “Refuge for sure, but hardly for me. Both of Marie-Chantal’s—my sister—children were sick with a summer flu. The kind that makes them retch all night long. Marie-Chantal was at her wits’ end. She hadn’t slept a wink in three days. She called me for help. She was silly to have waited so long.”

“There’s also a woman on the third floor who heard the shots fired and heard your husband shouting at you in the stairwell.”

“Is this Madame Durand-Lafriche, who lives on the second floor?”

Inès nodded.

“She’s eighty-five and completely gaga. Just like her husband. If you asked either one of them if they’d seen Moses himself coming down the stairs with his stone tablets, they’d tell you they had.” She smiled at Inès, as relaxed as if at one of her dinner parties. “You must think we live in an insane asylum. Actually, sometime I do, too. But you know, many of these old buildings in the Sixteenth are like that. There are many elderly people who live in apartments they inherited from their parents. They’ve lost their sense of proportion. Sometimes it can be a bit taxing, but it does give one a satisfying sense of continuity.”

“A sense of continuity, I would think,” Inès said faintly. This was a disaster. The woman would reveal nothing. Inès had made a tactical error by letting that imbecile Lambert interview her first. He had probably harped on financial matters and convinced Madame Tottinguer he was some sort of a tax inspector from the fisc. All the people of her class were brought up from childhood to believe the fisc were agents of Satan himself who were to be avoided at all costs. Why hadn’t she waited for Capucine?
Damn. Damn. Damn.

“Anyway, if this is about taxes, you really should speak to my husband. I’ve never filled out a tax form in my life. It’s my husband who knows all about that. He’s very busy. The poor dear works
so
hard. Right now he’s off on a business trip. But when he’s back, I’m sure he’ll make the time to see you.”