A Noël Killing

by M. L. Longworth

  All was quiet. He headed toward the cafés on the Place Richelme to get an espresso and take a look at that day’s edition of La Provence. Once there, he stood at the bar and watched the fishmongers set up their market stand, wondering where or how they found the strength to do that every day, all year long, in rain and sun and, especially in Provence, wind. And yet they seemed happy. Locals, mostly senior citizens up at the crack of dawn, passed their stand and waved or stopped to chat. A city worker, dressed in bright green coveralls, smoked a cigarette with one of the fishmongers, and Verlaque watched them as they gesticulated and laughed. He imagined they talked about soccer. Thank God for le foot, he thought, allowing millions of men the world over a subject of conversation.

  Three espressos and two croissants later, Verlaque headed for home to have a quick shower and shave. There wasn’t much interesting in La Provence, except for an expensive quarter-page ad for the Four Seasons bilingual school. A few days ago he hadn’t heard of the school; now it seemed to come up every day.

  He ran up the four flights of stairs to their flat, pretending he wasn’t tired, pretending he was in shape. As he turned the key in the lock he had to stop and catch his breath, breathing deeply for a few seconds.

  “Hello, beautiful,” he said quietly as he walked through the doorway. Marine was in her dressing gown, with her back to him, staring at the espresso machine. She turned slowly and nodded, her eyes bleary.

  “Oh, dear,” he continued. “Go back to bed and I’ll bring you a cappuccino.” She gave a small wave, barely lifting her right hand to chest level, and shuffled down the hall toward their bedroom. Verlaque whistled as he busied himself with the coffee, knowing the whistling would annoy her. He grinned.

  “Cappuccino, croissant, and a glass of cool water,” he said as he carried the tray into their bedroom. He set the tray on Marine’s lap and stood up. “I’m going to have a shower, then I’ll go make you another coffee.”

  “Thanks,” Marine said. “Why aren’t you exhausted?”

  “I ran into one of the young officers at a café. He gave me a little pill and told me to have it with a Red Bull.”

  “What?!” Marine sat up straight, jiggling the tray.

  “I knew that would get you going!” He laughed as he left the room, and was still laughing as he undressed and turned on the water.

  “Jerk,” Marine mumbled as she scooped up the remaining milk froth with her index finger.

  Thirty minutes later they were both showered and dressed, sitting in the living room. “You look very chipper,” Verlaque said. Marine wore a deep red cashmere turtleneck with black woolen pants that were cropped just above the ankle and black high heels. He knew that this was a writing day for her; she always dressed up when she was going to write. Marine normally wore classically cut clothes with little or no jewelry. But today she wore a thick gold chain necklace that shimmered off the red turtleneck. It touched him, as the necklace had been his mother’s.

  “Thank you,” she said. “And thank you for the breakfast in bed.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He looked at his watch. “I should get going soon. But tell me, what did you think about last night?”

  They spoke of how much they had enjoyed the ceremony.

  “And after, at the dinner?” Verlaque asked. “What did Wallflower tell you?”

  “Wallflower? That’s interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “That’s what my mother calls her, too,” Marine answered. “Her name is France Dubois and she works for the Protestant church. Not much. We need to start thinking about Christmas.”

  Verlaque groaned.

  “I know it’s not your favorite holiday,” Marine said. “But we’ve invited your father and Rebecca, and my parents, so we do need to think about the meal and some gifts.” Marine set her coffee cup down. “Antoine,” she began. “Our Christmas can be a happy one.”

  Verlaque got up and walked over to the living room window, watching an old woman walk up their narrow street, a market basket hung over her forearm. “Christmas reminds me of my mother,” he said. He took a deep breath and continued, “Both of my parents, actually. And the lousy job of parenting they did.”

  Marine stayed sitting so as not to break his concentration, however much she wanted to go and embrace him.

  “There were some Christmases when Maman wouldn’t even be there,” he went on. “So my father would flail around and take us last-minute skiing, along with one of his model girlfriends, or drop us off with Emmeline and Charles, who would be delighted, don’t get me wrong, but who would overcompensate. If my mother was there the odd Christmas, she and Father would argue. So as soon as I moved out of the house I got into the habit of avoiding Christmas altogether. I’d make sure I was on an airplane on December 24, destination anywhere, as long as it was far away. Tokyo, Tel Aviv . . .” He paused, rubbing his chin. “Give me another city that begins with a T.”

  Marine snorted. “Toronto.”

  “Thanks.”

  Marine got up and walked across the living room and put her arms around Verlaque.

  “Have a good day, my love,” Verlaque said as he held Marine. “I’ll see you tonight.” He kissed her, drinking in her smell . . . roses? . . . delighting in the warmth of her body. “I won’t be late,” he said.

  Marine stood against the window, watching Antoine put his coat on in the hallway. He opened the door, waved, and left. She picked up her coffee cup and carried it into the kitchen, thinking of Antoine Verlaque and all of the things he had done before she met him. She knew that she couldn’t ask him about his past without putting him on the defensive; he just clammed up. But she was curious all the same. She shrugged, putting the cup in the dishwasher, and thought to herself that it wasn’t important. But she had a clear image of a younger Antoine—no gray hair and a little more svelte—walking through a foreign city, one very much like Tel Aviv, with a sea and rows of palms, and she was curious, with a little pang of yearning.

  * * *

  The first thing Antoine Verlaque did once inside his office was to make an espresso. The second thing was to fill out the necessary form to order an autopsy of Cole Hainsby’s body, by demand of the examining magistrate, thus avoiding the need to wait for Debra Hainsby’s permission. He took it to Mme Girard—his secretary, who seemed to be away at the moment—and laid it on her spotless desk. He looked at the framed photograph of her three smiling children, now all grown up and out of the house. “Trois, bien sûr,” he mumbled. Most people he knew, if they had children, had three; the state child benefits reached their maximum with the third child. He went back into his office, closed the door, and picked up the phone to call Bruno Paulik.

  Five minutes later the commissioner was in Verlaque’s office, gently holding an espresso cup in his large hands. As Paulik sipped his coffee Verlaque told him of the previous evening’s events. “I know we don’t have much going on here at the moment, which is a blessing,” Verlaque concluded, “but do you think I’m overreacting?”

  Paulik set his empty demitasse on the edge of Verlaque’s desk and folded his arms. “A guy in his early forties can die very suddenly,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I had a cousin . . .”

  Verlaque tried to hide his smile. He folded his arms on the desk and leaned forward, ready to hear yet another story about one of the Paulik cousins from the Luberon. Both of his parents came from families with more than ten children, so Paulik had hundreds of cousins and hundreds of stories.

  “Yvan,” Paulik said. “Fell over dead at the age of thirty-six one afternoon after having eaten cassoulet for lunch.”

  Verlaque, who loved the meat and bean dish from the southwest, said nothing but did raise his eyebrows. Many cassoulets, he thought, were heavy enough to invoke a heart attack.

  “But it wasn’t a heart attack,” Paulik continued. “His heart ju
st stopped, the doctor told us. I think Yvan was brokenhearted.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. He loved a girl from Gordes, who just a few months previously had gotten pregnant and married one of those village assholes that always seem to exist. A bully in school.”

  Verlaque nodded. “We had those kinds of guys in Paris, too.”

  Paulik went on, his voice rising, as it always did when he told a story. “His parents—he still lived at home—found all kinds of letters Yvan had written but never posted to this girl. They burned them.”

  “This is tragic,” Verlaque said. “It’s like Ugolin in Manon des Sources.”

  Paulik nodded and let out a grunt. “Yeah, Yvan even looked like a young Daniel Auteuil, too.”

  Verlaque smiled, picturing the actor in the 1980s film version of Manon des Sources. It was one of the things that fascinated him as a young man, with Provence and its rich characters.

  Paulik went on, “Yvan was a wiry little guy, just like Auteuil. Could run like the wind.” He stopped and smiled.

  Verlaque knew that if small, wiry Yvan was being teased by the bullies from Gordes, his cousin Bruno would have protected him. Bruno Paulik: well known in the Luberon for his rugby skills, and well known to Verlaque for his calm and gentleness. “If it wasn’t so early I’d suggest we toast Yvan with a little rum,” he said, motioning with his head to a cupboard under his bookshelves where he kept a bottle of seven-year-old Havana Club, two glasses, and all of his cigar paraphernalia.

  Paulik, knowing what was in the cupboard, said, “Rain check.”

  When the commissioner had gone, Verlaque sat back down and thought about what had just happened: He goes to a Christmas concert, his first one, and a man dies after the concert. No wonder neither he nor Marine could sleep last night. Why was it bothering him so much? Was it memories of Grandpapa Charles, falling over during a Lions Club dinner near their country house in Normandy? With a glass of his favorite wine in hand, Verlaque had heard an elderly neighbor report a few days later. Or was it Dr. Forestier’s words of the rash and burn marks and Florence Bonnet’s gossiping? Yes, there was something in his mother-in-law’s story that nagged him.

  He got up and reached into his coat pocket, taking out La Provence, which he had folded in two. He sat back down and laid it out on his desk, turning to the full-page bilingual school ad. Resting his head in the palms of his hands, he studied the small black-and-white photographs. Each one depicted the students and faculty having a wondrous time at this school that Verlaque imagined cost more per year than his law school. Adjusting his reading glasses, he studied the third photo. The students were giving some sort of recital outside on a stage, and a bit of the first row of spectators could be seen. Debra Hainsby sat there, watching the students and smiling. Her right shoulder touched the man next to her—he, too, was smiling, but at Debra, not at the students. It wasn’t Cole Hainsby. Verlaque lifted up the newspaper and looked even closer; he recognized the man as the supposed “Italian or Corsican new money” that Florence Bonnet had pointed out in the dining hall. In the next photograph, Aix’s mayor was giving the school’s director some kind of award for good citizenship. In the caption their names were given: the mayor’s name Verlaque knew well, and the school’s director was cited as Alain Sorba. He was the same man who last night had shared his plate and glass with Debra Hainsby, and the same man sitting next to her at the students’ show.

  Chapter Eleven

  Aix’s coroner, Dr Agnès Cohen, called Verlaque at 10:00 a.m. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Am I disturbing you?”

  Verlaque had spent the previous hour writing down all the reasons he suspected foul play in Cole Hainsby’s death. He also spent a good deal of time looking out his office window onto the small street below, where a constant stream of cars slowly drove by, each hoping to get one of rue Mondar’s few parking spots. He wondered how long the rue Mondar would last before the city’s construction teams attacked it, under the guise of the mayor’s improvement schemes.

  “Paperwork,” he replied to the doctor. He looked up and could see the rounded dome over the chapel of Les Oblats, and beyond that, the tall pointed spire of Saint-Jean-de-Malte. The sky was the same clear blue that children used when depicting it in drawings.

  “I have the test results,” she said, “which I’ll send over by courier. But I thought you might like a heads-up.”

  “Go on.”

  “The dead man died of poisoning. His liver burst.”

  Verlaque winced and began pacing the room. “What kind of drug was used?”

  “Ah, one which I seldom use, but many people use every day or every other day. No prescription needed.” She paused and Verlaque could hear her chewing something. Pain au chocolat? Croissant? “Doliprane.”

  “Acetaminophen?”

  “Yes, the painkiller.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Eight pills of one thousand milligrams strength will do the trick,” she replied, now sipping something. Coffee? Water? “It’s very easy. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it was self-administered or if someone put it in his food.”

  “You can’t tell?”

  “Nope.”

  “Seriously?”

  She paused before answering. “I’ll need more time, but can’t promise anything.” She hung up before he could thank her.

  “Doliprane?” he mumbled. “Who dies from an overdose of Doliprane?” He opened his middle desk drawer and saw the familiar little yellow box. He also kept a box in the glove compartment of his car, and he knew that Mme Girard had a box in her desk, too. He had once had to ask her for one.

  He picked up his cell phone and called Bruno Paulik, filling him in and suggesting they have lunch together. His next phone call was to the APCA; he’d visit them before bothering Debra Hainsby. Who knew where she was right now? He dreaded the idea of her next task: telling her children that their father was dead.

  * * *

  It was cold and sunny as Verlaque and Paulik crossed the square in front of the Palais de Justice, turned left onto the rue Chastel, and walked into Chez Fanny’s, a bistro they both loved. It was run by a friendly blonde who years ago sold her flat and real estate business in Paris to relocate to Aix. Her food, simple and hearty, was made with organic and locally sourced ingredients. Paulik spotted an empty table for two and put his coat and scarf across a chair to save it while they ordered at the counter. Fanny said hello and, ever discrete, kept it to herself that she knew that the two burly men who had just walked in were a judge and a police commissioner.

  Paulik scanned the chalkboard and ordered a pan bagnat from Nice, something Fanny always had available.

  “What’s the plat du jour, Fanny?” Verlaque asked, squinting to read the menu.

  “Daube,” Fanny answered, flipping a white linen tea towel over her shoulder. “I made it with white wine, not red.”

  Verlaque raised his hand. “Sold!”

  “Wait a second,” Paulik said. “I’ll change my order and have the daube as well.”

  “What?” Verlaque asked, looking at Paulik and then grinning at Fanny. “You don’t want a healthy tuna salad on bread?”

  “It’s cold out,” Paulik said, shivering for effect.

  Fanny laughed. “The beef stew will warm you up. Go ahead and sit down. I’ll bring it over.”

  “Red wine!” Verlaque called out.

  “Ça marche!” Fanny answered. “I’ll bring you a carafe of water, too.”

  Paulik sat down, his forearms resting on the table. “The Protestant church is around the corner, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I called to make sure some of the key people from last night will be there this afternoon. I spoke to the reverend, who didn’t think it odd that we would want to speak to them.”

  “Because they don’t know we are questioning them,” Paulik suggested.
“Yet.” Paulik looked out the windows of Chez Fanny. One or two people walked by, and across the street was an historically listed mansion with an elaborately carved stone doorway. “I like this street, always have.”

  “Me, too. We’re so close to the Place des Prêcheurs and yet it’s so quiet here.”

  “Maybe too quiet for Fanny’s liking.”

  “Gentlemen,” Fanny said, setting two bowls of beef stew on the table. “The bowls are hot.”

  “Thank you,” Paulik said, turning up the sleeves on his shirt.

  Fanny’s assistant brought two carafes, one with tap water and one with wine, and set them between the men.

  “Anything else?” Fanny asked. “Besides bread, which I’ll bring in a second.”

  “The APCA,” Verlaque said, motioning outside by nodding his head toward the window.

  “On rue Lacépède,” Fanny said, her hands on her hips. “I get a lot of customers from there. And one of the congregation, the minister’s wife, in fact, just started making my chocolate cake, and pecan pie. American style.”

  “Has anyone from the church been in today?” Verlaque asked.

  “Just Jennifer—the baker—delivering the cake and pie. But we were both frazzled; it’s a Monday morning, so we didn’t speak much.”

  Paulik looked over at the counter, where half of a pie sat under a glass dome, butter oozing out its sides. “Where’s the cake?” he asked.

  Fanny pointed to the far end of the counter. “There are two pieces left,” she said. “Jennifer calls it chocolate death.”

  Paulik turned back around and looked at Verlaque, eyebrows raised.

  “You’d better set those aside for us,” Verlaque said, grinning.

  Fanny laughed, wiping her hands on her apron. “Okay. I’ll go get your bread.”