“Excuse me, boss,” Virgile said, looking at the screen. “It’s Jeremy. I need to take this.”
Benjamin nodded, and Virgile put the phone to his ear. He was silent. Not even a moment later, he shot Benjamin a distraught look.
“No!” Virgile yelled into the phone. “Don’t do anything foolish! Listen to me, Jeremy. Think of Valentin, your son! My God, where are you?”
He went silent again. Then: “I’m on my way. In two and a half hours I’ll be in Cahors. Let’s meet at the same café as the last time. No? Where then? Okay, I’ll see you there. I’ll find it.”
Virgile was nervously rocking in his chair, and Benjamin could feel his fear.
“Hang in there, pal. And bring along a case of your wine. Everybody’s asking for it.”
It was a well-intentioned lie, Benjamin knew. Obviously, Virgile was trying to buoy his very upset friend.
Benjamin’s admiration for Virgile grew as he listened. What a big-hearted and compassionate young man. And how was it that Virgile knew exactly what to say? Benjamin himself had written several editions of the bestselling Cooker Guide and was often asked to give speeches and toasts. In public, Benjamin could be cordial and entertaining. But he was really a private man who tended to keep his feelings to himself. He expressed his love and affection in actions, not words. The important people in his life—Elisabeth and Margaux especially—understood this. But Benjamin sometimes chastised himself for being so reserved. In fact, he had failed two of his closest friends, who had taken their own lives. Maybe if he had reached out, they would still be alive.
There was his high school friend, Jay, who had jumped out a window the night before he was due to appear before a disciplinary board. He’d been accused of stealing money from the cafeteria cash register.
And then, Hugh, the most promising cricket player on Benjamin’s team, a rough-hewn colossus—broad shoulders, square chin, cobalt-blue eyes, fond of salacious jokes and admired by everyone. The girls all vied for his attention. Then, one night, he was found hanging by the neck in the gymnasium with a note in the pocket of his shorts: “Life has become unbearable for me… Game over!”
Benjamin couldn’t understand. Hugh seemed to have everything going for him. A week after the funeral, he learned the truth. Hugh’s mother asked Benjamin to meet with her.
“He left something for you,” she said, leading Benjamin to Hugh’s bedroom. She opened her son’s desk drawer and pulled out his class ring. “He wanted you to have this.”
Benjamin was stunned. “It’s his class ring,” he said. “You shouldn’t be giving me this. Please, keep it.”
“You don’t understand, Benjamin,” the bereaved mother said. “He wanted to be more than a friend, and there was no way he could tell you. I knew all along that Hugh wasn’t like the other boys, but what could I do? Everyone at that school would have ostracized him. So just to be accepted, he had to make a big show of being a man’s man.”
Benjamin was heart-stricken. He couldn’t have reciprocated Hugh’s feelings, but maybe if he had known that his friend was gay, he could have kept him from ending his life. Benjamin felt guilty. If only he had been more empathetic…
The winemaker sighed. Even these days, being a gay teenager was far from easy.
Virgile ended the call and looked at Benjamin. The urgent expression on his face said it all. Virgile couldn’t wait to get to Cahors to keep his distraught friend from doing something stupid.
“Do you want to take the Mercedes, Virgile? I think that Peugeot of yours could use a tune-up. You’ve been driving it pretty hard since you bought it. You’ll get there faster in my car.”
“I’d appreciate that, boss. It’s very kind of you.”
Benjamin and Virgile hurried back to the convertible in the parking lot beside the Ciron. They exchanged car keys, and Virgile slipped behind the wheel. Benjamin reached in and gave Virgile’s shoulder a squeeze.
“Tell your friend that his Cahors will be in the next Cooker Guide.”
“Thanks, boss. You’re very generous. I’m sure it will help.”
“Okay, get going! Your friend is waiting.”
Benjamin waved and headed toward Virgile’s car. He’d take the road called Chemin des Brumes-d’Or, or Golden Mists, and along the way he’d light another robusto. He still had some business to tend to.
19
Benjamin Cooker’s convertible was eating up the road with uncustomary speed. Virgile had slid an Adele CD into the player and was keeping time by drumming his fingers on the steering wheel while negotiating the twists and turns of the road.
When he saw the exit for Agen, he felt as if he had the ability to change the course of events and get his school friend back on track. He was more than an hour away from Cahors, but he was making good time.
Quercy Blanc was known for its limestone buildings and plateaus, its windmills, and ancient legends. Virgile replaced Adele with the Chieftains. The landscape passing before his eyes reminded him of an Ireland he had seen in old issues of National Geographic.
Twice he tried to reach Jeremy on his cell phone to tell him that he was only a few kilometers away, that everything would be okay, that life still had some nice surprises in store for him. But they went straight to voice mail. Virgile ended the second call and threw his phone into the glove compartment.
“Cahors: 45 km,” read the sign. The oak trees were dressed in their bronze foliage. White clouds raced across the horizon, and Virgile thought he could make out the blue peaks of the Pyrenees.
Now what he needed to see was Jeremy’s face. “Please, please,” he mumbled, hoping his words would reach any benevolent higher power. “Please.”
20
Chantal Delfranc’s eyes lit up when she realized the driver of the old Peugeot that had just pulled into the courtyard of her farmhouse bed and breakfast was none other than her old friend, Benjamin Cooker.
“Benjamin, what a surprise! You didn’t lose a wager and forfeit that precious Mercedes of yours, did you?”
“Chantal, I thought you knew me better,” Benjamin said, giving his old friend a wink. “I’m not averse to a wager or two, but I’d never put up my convertible, not even with all the mileage it has on it.”
“The way you take care of that car, you’ll get a good eight hundred thousand kilometers out of it. You’ll tire of your Mercedes before it wears out.”
“Never! Actually, Virgile and I traded cars for the day. Where’s your better half?”
“My better half? You know good and well that I’m Alain’s better half. But I forgive you.” She air-kissed Benjamin’s cheeks. “Let’s go find him.”
The Cookers and the Delfrancs had known each other for a long time, and after the Delfrancs moved to Saint-Estèphe, their friendship with the Cookers became even closer.
Alain had taken an early retirement from the French intelligence service so that he and Chantal could open their bed and breakfast. Benjamin had met him in Paris many years earlier. Alain was a police intern at the time, and Benjamin was tending the bar at the Caveau de la Huchette.
Although the quiet type, Alain was rather adventurous. His wife, meanwhile, was a dynamo. Alain sometimes joked that she had more energy than the Blayais Nuclear Power Plant near Bordeaux.
Chantal led Benjamin into their home. “Alain, guess who’s here,” she called up the stairs.
A minute later, Alain appeared. He hurried down the narrow staircase and greeted Benjamin with a firm handshake and a pat on the back. “What a delightful surprise. Come, sit down,” he said, pointing to the living room. “We need to catch up.”
Chantal excused herself and rushed into the kitchen. She reappeared a few minutes later with a tray holding three cups of steaming tea and a plate of madeleines. “So, Benjamin, how’s Elisabeth?” she asked. “And Margaux? Is she still happy in the States?”
“They’re both fine, Chantal. I talked to Margaux just last weekend. We Skype these days. And we’re following each other on Twitter.�
�
Chantal burst out laughing. “Benjamin Cooker tweeting? I don’t believe it!”
Benjamin gave her a mock-offended look. “Why is that so funny, Chantal? I’m on Facebook, too. My father, of all people, has dragged me into the twenty-first century. With Elisabeth’s help, he got himself a computer and a cell phone, and he’s insisting that I keep up with him.”
“My goodness, what next?” Chantal said, shaking her head. “I have to admit, though, our inn could use a better social media presence. Maybe you could help us.”
“For that you’re better off consulting a professional, Chantal.”
Chantal finished her tea and got up. “I have some things I need to do, so I’ll let you two enjoy each other’s company.” As she left the room, Alain invited Benjamin out to the terrace.
§§§
The waters of the Gironde were turbid and saffron-colored in the low late-afternoon sun. The shadows of the trees on the far bank stretched over the river like gnarled fingers.
Benjamin was silent for a moment as he watched Alain season his pipe. “Tell me,” he finally said. “Your friends in the criminal investigation division like to keep it simple, don’t they?”
Alain smiled. “So you’re looking into that double homicide, is that it? The old Lacombe couple? What a shame.”
“Yes, and yes. It is a shame, and I’m trying to get some answers. I’d appreciate your input.”
“I try to keep my opinions on criminal matters to myself these days. But since you’re my friend… In all the investigations that I conducted, I did my best to figure out the motive before I started looking for the culprit. It doesn’t seem that this drifter had sufficient reason to kill those two people.”
“That’s my feeling, too.”
Benjamin lit a cigar, and the two men stood watching the river water flow toward Cordouan. Benjamin had the sense that they were of the same mind, and Alain was as perplexed as he was.
“Have they at least found the Lacombes’ wedding rings?” Benjamin asked, feeling like a fisherman casting his net.
“No,” Alain answered.
Benjamin waited for him to say more, but there was nothing. He finally turned to him, his eyes narrowed in frustration. “You know more than you’re letting on. That’s my Alain—always tight-lipped.”
Alain took his pipe out of his mouth and stared back at Benjamin. “What I know, I heard from a higher-up in the criminal investigation division. He didn’t say anything that would convince me of the drug addict’s guilt, I admit.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“The drug user claims he threw the rings into the Ciron in a moment of panic.” Alain puffed his pipe.
Benjamin detested the sweet odor of Dutch tobacco, but he didn’t want to offend his friend. In many ways, Alain and he were similar. Their habits were ingrained, and their sense of honor was just as entrenched. Alain was silenced by the vow of confidentiality inherent in his former profession, and it was only because of their friendship that he had divulged this much.
It was either ironic or fitting—Benjamin couldn’t decide which—that he was trying to pry the information out of a man who had presented him with a 1989 Yquem when he and Chantal arrived for one of their first dinners at Grangebelle.
“One very fine year!” Benjamin had enthused. “I almost feel guilty uncorking this. Alain, do you know what a long life these bottles have? Don’t you want to hold onto it?”
“Benjamin, my friend, this bottle has been waiting for this very night,” Alain had responded. “Let’s open it.”
Elisabeth had prepared the perfect appetizer: foie gras with a tart sauce. The honey and lush lemon flavors of the wine were an excellent counterpoint to the foie gras.
“It’s like velvet!” Alain had said after taking his first sip of the 1989. “Did you know, Benjamin, that when Thomas Jefferson was an envoy to France, he declared Sauternes our country’s best wine? He ordered 250 bottles for himself and more bottles for George Washington.”
Benjamin nodded. “I heard that story. But believe it or not, I think the Yquem we’re drinking is superior to what he took back to America. The technique of letting the noble rot do its work hadn’t been perfected yet.”
Over the years, the two couples had enjoyed some exceptional vintages together. Benjamin and Alain loved surprising each other with rare bottles and news of promising small vineyards they had just discovered. And although they also savored their political discussions in the libraries of their homes, it was their shared passion for wine that cemented their relationship.
Through it all, Benjamin had stuck with his cigars, while Alain had kept his briar pipe firmly clenched in his mouth. He had taken up the pipe the year he went into police work, and by his own admission, Sherlock Holmes had played no small part in this decision.
Benjamin waited for his friend to take two more puffs. “So the junkie has no alibi?”
“None whatsoever. He argued that night with some guy he was palling around with, and the two parted ways.”
“If we believe the gamekeeper’s account reported in the newspaper, the dog could be the only witness, and there’s no way it’s going to talk. That’s assuming the kid didn’t just hand the wolfhound over to the guy with the Mohawk or set him loose before he murdered the couple. Why would you want to bother with a dog when you’re about to commit a murder?”
“You have a point, Benjamin.”
The winemaker sent two smoke rings into the twilight air. “It appears that the kid was taken into custody solely on the allegations of this gamekeeper, who’s a bit shady, if you ask me.”
“Shady?”
“I understand he’s not only shady, but also nasty.”
Alain drew on his pipe, but the tobacco was spent. Benjamin, however, still had the last third of his robusto to enjoy. He finished it, and the two men stood silently on the terrace. A few minutes later, a brisk breeze from the west made them shiver, and they headed back to the living room.
“An old colleague of mine, a native of Normandy, paid us a visit last week,” Alain said. “He gave us a bottle of Groult calvados. Le Vénérable. You’ve tasted it, I presume.”
“I have a vague recollection—one that I would certainly enjoy reviving!”
Alain opened the bottle and filled two small glasses.
At that moment, Chantal peeked into the living room. “You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you, Benjamin?” Without waiting for the winemaker’s response, she added, “I’ll call Elisabeth so she can join us.”
“So be it!” Benjamin raised his glass. He downed the twenty-year-old brandy in one gulp and savored the prolonged gingerbread finish.
21
Virgile found a parking space on the Rue Gustave Larroumet and peeked through the window of La Source. No Jeremy.
The café, in fact, was nearly empty. Two post-adolescent boys with tattooed arms were on barstools, sipping blond beers. Another boy was playing darts. Sprawled on a seat near the wall, a red-haired woman in a low-neck T-shirt appeared to be flirting with the bartender. Everyone seemed to be hard at work killing time.
Virgile went in and sat down on a bench near the woman with the faux red hair. He ordered a pint of beer and took off his parka. He was hot and thirsty and dying for a smoke. He had given up cigarettes, but Jeremy’s phone call and the drive had made him a ball of nerves. He considered asking the woman for one but thought better of it. The urge to smoke would go away. She wouldn’t.
At that very moment Jeremy walked in. Virgile waved him over. His friend’s eyes were red, and his cheeks and chin were full of stubble.
“Let’s get a booth,” Virgile said. “We’ll have more privacy.”
They chose a booth at the back of the bar, and Jeremy took off his jacket. Virgile noticed that the sleeves of his sweater were frayed. He ordered two more beers and waited for Jeremy to say something.
“Thanks for coming,” he finally ventured.
“Forget the usual bullshit,” Virgile resp
onded, wagging his finger.
Jeremy attempted an embarrassed smile. He looked alarmingly fragile. His gold wedding band, like the jacket he had just taken off, was too big. Jeremy looked like he had lost weight. Was he eating?
The two friends drank their beer in silence.
“I have your wine in the trunk of my car,” Jeremy finally said.
Virgile heard a commotion at the front of the bar and looked up. Several boisterous young people had come in, and Virgile wondered if he and Jeremy would be able to have a quiet conversation. The woman with the red hair, meanwhile, was watching them. Was she trying to listen in? Virgile did his best to ignore her.
“Tell me, Jeremy. How did you and Cecile get together?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because she will always be the only woman in your life. Isn’t that so?”
“So what?”
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“If you really want to know, she was the one who came on to me. At first I thought I was her boy toy—but then it got serious.”
“Still, she didn’t have any problem breaking up with you, did she?”
“It wasn’t like that. I told you. We just had to go our separate ways. We didn’t want the same things.”
Jeremy’s words struck Virgile. For the first time, he understood that his friend’s life, in one significant way, paralleled his own. Margaux had chosen a life in New York, while he would always be committed to the vineyards of France. Even if Benjamin Cooker approved of him as Margaux’s husband, he could never live in New York—as much as he cared for her. Only if she came back could they make a go of it.
The woman with the red hair had taken a pocket mirror from her bag and was daubing her thin lips with scarlet lipstick. Was she still listening?
“I saw your father on the day of the Lacombe funeral. He’s still very angry with Cecile. He’s under the impression that the breakup was all her fault, and it threw you for a loop.”
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