“Right . . . And what did this message say?”
“The valet wasn’t authorized to read Madame de Montespan’s private correspondence, but you know how a king’s staff can be . . .”
“Curious.”
“Exactly. Well, someone was waiting to meet her. Some gentleman friend. And you know how women are . . .”
Plassard almost choked. This man was clueless.
“And who was this gentleman?”
“No idea. I don’t even know if the message was real. It could have been a fake message from a rival who was eager to get rid of her and take her place beside the king. Many women were jealous of Madame de Montespan.”
“And Mrs. Ravault?”
“Um . . . Virginie? We all like her. We’ve played together for years.”
“Have you added any new members recently?”
The director’s eyes lit up, and he leaned in.
“We get new members all the time, even people connected to show business. As a matter of fact, we just attracted the son of a celebrity. Michael Delvaux, Marianne Delvaux’s son, has joined our group.”
Kriven and Almeida walked into Mrs. Ravault’s law firm to meet with her two associates, who appeared in well-tailored gray suits and blue shirts. They both had gray hair, and Kriven guessed they were in their early fifties.
“Virginie liked working on sensitive cases,” one of them said. “Rapes, sexual abuse of minors, and blood crimes.”
“Did she take an interest in her clients?” Kriven asked.
“Of course. Everyone deserves a defense. But as you can imagine, some clients are easier to like than others.”
“You never refuse a client?”
“Yes, in fact, we do. Unless it’s a charity case that really appeals to us, our clients must have the money to pay. And our caseload is occasionally so full that we can’t take on anyone new.”
“So did her clients like her?”
“For the most part,” the other associate said. “But she had a strong personality and clashed with people every now and then.”
“Oh?” Almeida said, keeping his tone impassive. “Did she ever get any threats?”
“Sometimes she got threatening letters, like we all do,” the first associate said. “But she didn’t let them affect her.”
“But did any of the letters wind up getting to her? Did she receive any recently?”
The two men exchanged a glance.
“Yes to both of those questions,” the first associate said. “Somebody was sending her a letter every month. They started coming five months ago, and they always arrived on the same day—the fifteenth.”
Virginie Ravault had been murdered on the night of May 15.
“And yesterday as well?”
“Yes.”
“Where are these letters?”
“In her office, I assume.”
“Lieutenant Almeida will go get them. I’m sure a secretary can show him the way.”
Almeida stood up.
“The first couple of months, we weren’t terribly concerned. We thought it was just some crackpot. But when they kept coming, we wanted her to call the police. She refused. If only she had . . .”
“So the letters didn’t scare her?” Kriven asked.
“She took them in stride at first—she thought her ex-husband might be behind them. But the last few letters seemed to get to her.”
“Why would she think it was her ex-husband? Was he abusive?”
“Let’s just say that he wouldn’t let her go. But eventually she realized it wasn’t him.”
“How did she come to that conclusion?”
“She just knew. He was still in love with her, yes, but he wouldn’t have stalked her.”
“What about her clients? Could it have been someone who was angry over a conviction?”
“Anything’s possible, but that kind of thing happens in the movies more than in real life.”
“Did she tell you what the letters said?” Kriven asked.
“They always said the same thing: ‘Arrogant bitch, I’m going to fuck you.’”
“A real poet.” Kriven turned to the other lawyer. “She taught classes at the university, right?”
“At the Criminology Institute,” the lawyer said.
“And she spoke at conferences?”
“She was a highly regarded criminal lawyer.” The associate paused for a moment and cleared his throat. “Let’s just say she liked sharing her experience.”
“I’m getting the impression that it wasn’t just professional experience that she shared. Am I right?”
The two lawyers looked at each other again.
“She enjoyed the company of young men,” the second associate said. “You may find that useful in your investigation.”
“Do you have any names?”
“None in particular.”
“Lucas Barel? Etienne Delamare? Do either of those names mean anything to you?”
The two men shook their heads.
Almeida returned, the envelopes in hand. “I found them,” he said.
Kriven took the envelopes and calmly opened the first one. The writing was angular and red. He looked up at Almeida and handed it over. “It’s him.”
Then he opened the rest. They were all the same. The copycat had planned everything well in advance. Even before Kevin, Eva, Noë, and little Juliette, Virginie Ravault was on his list.
Kriven turned to the lawyers. “Do you have any recollection of a student who might have stopped by here to see her? Or do you remember a particular argument with a client? Anything that could help us find out who wrote these letters?”
The first associate shook his head. “Nothing, really.”
“Did you know that Mrs. Ravault enjoyed role-playing games?”
“Yes, she asked us to go with her once. She had an event yesterday at Versailles.”
“Where were you then?”
“I was here, working,” the first associate said.
“I was in court until late last night,” the other replied. “Then I came back to the office and did some paperwork.”
“When did you go home?”
The second associate sighed. “All right, detective. We know where you’re going with this. We’re criminal lawyers, after all. I went home around ten. My wife can confirm it.”
“And I was doing paperwork with my secretary until eight,” his colleague said. “After that, I had dinner at Lasserre.”
A two-Michelin-star restaurant. That alibi would be easy to check.
“We’ll come back later with an order allowing us to take Mrs. Ravault’s professional engagement calendar and files,” Almeida said.
“We’re available if you need us.”
“Perfect,” Kriven concluded.
The second associate accompanied Kriven and Almeida to the door. But instead of saying good-bye, he followed them outside. Once he’d made sure the door was closed behind them, he took Kriven’s elbow. “Virginie had a relationship with a young man who came here once. A . . . well . . .”
“Who was it?”
“The son of that actress Marianne Delvaux.”
Lucas Barel lived on Rue de Javel, near the Félix Faure metro station in the fifteenth arrondissement. The street owed its name to a factory located here in the eighteenth century that manufactured a bleach called eau de javel. After making sure all the exits were guarded, Commander Maurin and her team entered the building. Captain Noumen rang the bell when they reached Lucas’s apartment. There was no answer so Maurin called out, ordering Barel to open up. A neighbor came out to the landing.
“He hangs out at Bistro 12, on the corner of Avenue Félix Faure. I heard him leave about a half hour ago.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“No problem. Nothing serious, I hope.”
“We just have a few questions for him.”
“That guy is creepy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was mixed up in something shady.”
The man went back into his apart
ment, and the detectives dashed down the stairs, determined not to miss Lucas Barel.
With its red seats and plastic tabletops, Bistro 12 was a bar and brasserie much like others all over the capital. It served up sauerkraut, tripe, and steaks for lunch, as well as open-face sandwiches and salads for those watching their weight. Lucas Barel was seated at an outdoor table, drinking coffee and reading a law review. Easy target, Maurin thought. She nodded to the rest of her team, who discreetly stationed themselves around the area. He could run like a rabbit, but he’d have six armed hunters on his heels. She approached Barel, taking care to block the sun when he looked up.
“Lucas Barel?” she asked.
His eyes grew suspicious.
“Criminal Investigation Division. Please follow me. We have some questions for you.”
“About what?”
“We’ll talk at headquarters.”
Noumen approached, his open jacket revealing his service weapon.
“Do not force me to be more specific, Mr. Barel.”
“I have to study for my exams, so why don’t you just tell me what you want right now? I’m sure we can settle this here.”
Maurin put a hand on the grip of her holstered gun. “What you’re going to settle is your bill. Then you’re going to get up without causing a fuss, unless you’d rather be cuffed.”
Barel swallowed hard and said nothing as they led him away. “But what is this about?” he finally asked once he was in the back of an unmarked car.
“It’s about Vincent Van Gogh,” Noumen said. “And the bitter taste of lemons.”
Like most successful actresses in the movie industry, Marianne Delvaux was an attractive woman. Nico could only imagine how much effort it took her to stay that way as she approached fifty. Given that her face was as smooth as a baby’s behind, she had undoubtedly been to a plastic surgeon many times.
“Please remove your sunglasses,” Deputy Chief Rost asked politely.
They wanted to be able to read her eyes. But that might be more difficult with Delvaux than other suspects, since her eyes were capable of expressing anything she wanted. She was a professional.
“This is an interrogation,” Rost said. “You will be recorded and filmed. It’s standard procedure.”
“I’m aware of that. I’ve been in cop shows before. But I don’t know what you want from me. I already told you about William and his daughter. I’m sincerely sorry that she was murdered.”
“You said you weren’t close to Eva Keller,” Rost said.
“I was close to her father. That was enough for me.”
Delvaux’s arrogant tone was getting on Nico’s nerves, but he didn’t let it show.
“And yet you helped her with her documentary,” Rost said.
“You mean by getting her an appointment with someone at the bar association?” Delvaux asked, raising her eyebrows.
“For someone who says she had little or no contact with the victim, you appear to have been more interested in her work than you’d led us to believe.”
“Is that why you summoned me?” she asked, visibly relieved.
“What did you imagine?” Rost said, raising his voice.
“Nothing, in fact. I didn’t understand why you’d called me in.”
“This video won’t make it to the silver screen, Mrs. Delvaux,” Nico finally said. “But we might very well end up viewing it somewhere else—in a courtroom, for example.”
Nico watched as his words had the desired effect. A worried look flitted across her face, but just as quickly she pulled herself together.
“Whose idea was that appointment?” Nico asked.
“Eva asked me to help her. She knew the bâtonnier was a friend of mine. I met her when I was preparing for a role, and we got along well.”
“How did Eva know?”
“I have no idea. Maybe her father mentioned it. I might have told him about that meeting.”
“I thought your relationship with him was purely sexual in nature,” Nico shot out.
“Yes . . . but . . .” The actress was thrown off. “We did talk from time to time, all the same. What do you think I am?”
“An excellent actress.”
Marianne Delvaux didn’t answer, and Nico figured she was deciding on the right demeanor to adopt. Someone knocked on the door, and Commander Théron stuck his head in, giving Delvaux a reprieve.
“Can I see you for a moment, Chief?”
Nico stood up and left the room. Théron wouldn’t have bothered him for no reason.
“We just stepped on a land mine,” Théron told him outside the door. “Kriven says Delvaux’s son recently joined the role-playing association Mrs. Ravault belonged to, and, according to her associates, he also went to see her at her office. It’s quite possible they had a fling. The lawyer liked them young.”
Nico’s mind was racing. That the young Delvaux had connections with two of the five victims seemed far from coincidental.
“I checked a few things. Michael Delvaux is studying law, and he’s working on a master’s in criminology. Mrs. Ravault could have met him in class and been intrigued by the idea of bedding the son of a famous actress. And get this: Michael Delvaux attended that ‘Abuse of Truth’ conference.”
“Loop Becker in,” Nico ordered. “I’m going back in.”
Commander Maurin took Lucas Barel into custody and placed him in a cell on the fourth floor, the only one with a one-way mirror.
“I’ll get them,” Noumen said.
He was talking about the two students from the film school who had been working with Eva Keller. Maurin turned the hall light off so Barel couldn’t see the students. It was a rudimentary setup, and Noumen required silence—the walls were paper thin.
“Never seen him before,” one said.
“Me either,” the other chimed in.
So Lucas Barel wasn’t the student Eva Keller had fixated on. He may have come on to Etienne Delamare, but he was left-handed and wore a size 42 shoe. Nevertheless, there was the Still Life with Lemons mystery. They weren’t finished with him, even if they now had another candidate for the man who seduced Eva Keller: Michael Delvaux.
“Did your son know Eva Keller?” Nico asked, returning to the room.
Marianne Delvaux bit her lip, no longer an actress assuming a pose. She was a mother now, and her boy was her Achilles’ heel.
“What does my son have to do with this?” she asked, her voice shaky.
“Michael Delvaux’s a student in criminology, right?” Nico continued. “Was it his idea to interview the bâtonnier at the bar association?”
“Absolutely not! Eva was the one who asked me. Michael hardly knew her.”
“They attended the same conference at the university right before Christmas.”
Delvaux seemed to be taking that in.
“Did your son know about your relationship with William Keller?”
“No. Do you think that’s the sort of thing you share with your children?”
She seemed sincere and totally confused by the notion that her son could be involved in the investigation.
“Do you know a lawyer named Virginie Ravault?”
“That name means nothing to me, no.”
“She was just murdered by the same man who killed Eva Keller.”
“My God!”
“Your son knew her. He visited her at her office. She taught in the master’s program at the Criminology Institute. What’s more, Michael participated in the reenactments that were Mrs. Ravault’s passion. We think they may have had a liaison.”
“My poor Michael,” Marianne Delvaux said, on the verge of tears.
A few minutes earlier, Nico was confident he could read her. Now he wasn’t so sure. She truly deserved her César Award.
Captain Stéphane Rodon examined the suspect’s perfectly cared-for teeth.
“Did you know, Mr. Barel, that you’re missing two teeth?”
“Which ones?” Commander Maurin asked.
“T
he two upper canines, as we expected.”
“What’s it to you?”
“To us, not much, but to you, it means your worries have only just begun,” Captain Noumen said.
“I’ll call the lab.” Rodon already had his phone out.
The forensics lab had taken a cast of the bite marks on Noë Valles’s neck and generated a model of the perpetrator’s bite.
Judge Becker was pacing. Nico had rarely seen him lose his patience like this.
“Delamare, Barel, Delvaux . . . We’ve got three suspects. All of them from the same school. Explain that to me. I don’t get it. And I don’t like it.”
“To begin with, why don’t you sit down,” Nico said calmly. “Here’s what we know: Lucas Barel used to hang out with Etienne Delamare, and even came on to him—without success. He could have tried to get back at Etienne through his cousin, Juliette. So let’s go over that theory. He wears a size 42 shoe, but he could have put on overshoes that were larger. There’s no sign of an Audi A3 anywhere near his residence, but that doesn’t mean much. He could have borrowed one. But there’s this factor as well: he’s left-handed, and it’s not likely that a left-handed murderer would switch to his right hand to commit a homicide. That leads me to question whether Barel’s our man in Juliette Bisot’s homicide.”
Becker harrumphed.
“But at the same time, we have the following things to consider. He gave a Van Gogh reproduction to Etienne Delamare, Still Life with Lemons, and we found the name of that painting written on the wall of Virginie Ravault’s bathroom. What’s the connection between Barel and Mrs. Ravault? There’s the conference on the abuse of truth and the fact that they probably crossed paths at the university. As for Eva Keller, the two students she was supposed to do her documentary with say Barel’s not the guy they saw her with at the conference.”
Becker was crossing and uncrossing his arms.
“The craziest thing is that Barel’s missing two canines, and the lab will have to determine if his teeth match those of Noë Valles’s killer. What’s the link between Barel and Valles? So far, we don’t know. And we have no link connecting Barel to Kevin Longin.”
“What’s the Delvaux kid doing in the middle of all this?”
“He has a motive: getting revenge for William Keller’s involvement with his mother. He was registered to attend the conference, like Barel and Eva Keller. And he knew Mrs. Ravault, which means he’s connected to two of the five victims. We’re looking for connections to Juliette Bisot, Kevin Longin, and Noë Valles.”
Looking to the Woods Page 17