A Noël Killing

by M. L. Longworth

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I was sitting in my office this afternoon, thinking only of being alone with you,” Verlaque said as he held Marine in his arms. He caressed her thick wavy hair and smelled the back of her neck. Again, roses.

  Marine pulled away and looked at him. She put a hand to his cheek and gently rubbed it, running her fingers along his usual three-day beard. Tomorrow morning he would trim it after showering. “I think of you, too, during the day,” she said. “There’s nothing nicer to come home to. My partner.” She stopped caressing his cheek and said, “But tonight we won’t be alone.”

  Verlaque let his arms drop quickly to his sides in what he hoped was sufficiently dramatic fashion. “Pardon?”

  “You invited your old school friend and the movie star.”

  He slapped his forehead, this time with no calculated drama. “I forgot. It’s because it’s midweek; we usually entertain on the weekends.”

  “Right, but I remember you telling me they were going somewhere this weekend.”

  Verlaque laughed. “Yes, but I can’t remember where. Megève? St. Moritz?”

  “If you’ll set the table,” Marine said, “I’ll finish up in the kitchen.”

  “What are we eating?”

  “A sort of quick cassoulet. A friend gave me the recipe.”

  “You’re serving sausage and beans to a film star?” Verlaque asked. “I love it.” He decided not to tell Marine about Bruno’s cousin Yvan. “I’ll pick some reds from the cellar. What’s the first course?” He suddenly remembered that he had eaten only a few desserts for lunch. With tea.

  “The usual suspects. Sliced salami, nuts, olives. I didn’t have time for anything else.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot!” Verlaque said. He went to the front hall and picked up the plastic bag off the Empire-era console, one of the few pieces of furniture he had taken from his grandparents’ home in Paris. He gave the walnut console a quick glance, taking in its thin legs trimmed at the top with gold leaves. So elegant, like Emmeline, like Marine. He went back into the kitchen. “This is for you. From the Tunisian stand at the fair.”

  Marine set down a head of frisée lettuce and opened the bag, gently removing the newspaper. “They’re beautiful. Thank you,” she said, turning each bowl around in her hands. “What a pretty pattern. Perfect for olives.”

  Verlaque looked at her feet.

  “What is it?” Marine asked.

  “Would you like a little rug right there? In front of the sink?”

  “No,” Marine replied firmly. “It would only get dirty.”

  “Think about it. I’ll go down to the wine cellar and when I come back up I’ll tell you about Debra Hainsby,” Verlaque said as he walked toward the front door.

  Marine turned back to face the sink and smiled, listening to her husband whistle while he skipped down the stairs. She washed the lettuce, put it in the spinner, spun it, then set it aside. In a large ceramic salad bowl she made the dressing, beginning with some finely chopped shallots and a tablespoon of mustard. She added a good amount of walnut vinegar and then slowly poured in the dark green olive oil from Les Baux, stirring quickly until a thick dark yellow sauce formed. She breathed in the smell—a mixture of pungent mustard and onions, walnuts, old wine, and olives, not one ingredient overpowering the other. She closed her eyes, thankful that her mother had at least taught her to make a proper salad dressing. Everything else she had learned from books, from Antoine, or from watching friends cook.

  “Ready!” Verlaque said, back in the kitchen holding two bottles. “I picked two local reds. Thought we’d introduce our Parisians to some great wines from Aix. One of them is Hélène’s 2003 Syrah.”

  “The year of the heat wave!” Marine said. “How strong is it?”

  Verlaque looked at the bottle’s label. “Fifteen percent.” Before Marine could object he added, “The beans will soak up all the alcohol.”

  Marine looked at the clock on the wall. “They’ll be here soon,” she said. “Tell me about your day while we set the table.”

  Verlaque gave the Riedel wineglasses a last-minute wipe with a linen tea towel and told Marine about the English women, making her laugh with his imitation of Mme Sumner-Smith, his back erect, his cheeks sucked in, and his hands folded in front of his chest. He put less performance into his description of the Americans and the Tunisian, but he did tell her about France Dubois staring at Jason Miller. “Lovers’ quarrel?” Marine asked.

  “With France Dubois?”

  “Antoine . . .”

  “But the most interesting interview was with Debra Hainsby,” Verlaque said. “It started off as you would expect; she was full of questions, and grief. By the end of it she had admitted that she was going to leave her husband.”

  “Despite what you say, I can’t see a wife killing her husband,” Marine said, setting down the last dessert spoon. “Sorry.”

  “Why is that? It’s certainly been done in the past.”

  “The children.”

  Verlaque was about to reply when the buzzer sounded. He walked over to the intercom, lifted up the receiver, and yelled into it, “Fourth and last floor. Sorry, there’s no elevator.” As he hung up he heard Léo Vidal-Godard mutter, “Merde.” He opened the front door slightly and waited, while out of the corner of his eye he could see Marine applying a last-minute coat of lipstick, using one of the glass-fronted kitchen cabinets as a mirror. She quickly took off her apron and gave her husband a thumbs-up, smiling widely. His heart melted.

  * * *

  Margaux Perrot, with her porcelain skin and expensively trained trim body, entertained the others during dinner with stories about filming in Russia in winter with a famous young actor who kept adding vodka to his hot tea and could, miraculously, still remember his lines. And yet Margaux seemed entirely unaffected by her fame. Her questions about their lives, and Aix, were natural and sincere. She asked Marine what kind of sausages she had used, and it reminded Verlaque of a heroine in an English novel from the turn of the century that Emmeline had loved. Was her name Lucy? Yes, he thought so. Lucy, who, despite her wealth and well-bred family, couldn’t help but follow the kitchen staff around, demanding how the pudding was made. He smiled because, as if on cue, Margaux’s next question was about the dessert. He turned to Léo and asked if he’d like a cigar.

  “I’d love one!” Léo replied.

  “Not around me,” Margaux quickly said. “Sorry, I don’t like the smell and they remind me of my first husband.”

  “Let’s go for a stroll,” Léo suggested. “It’s not very cold out tonight.”

  “Let’s,” Verlaque agreed. “Aix is at its best at night, anyway.”

  “I’ll put on some tea,” Marine said. Verlaque looked at her, surprised. She usually had a digestif with him after a big meal like the one they had just eaten. But he supposed that Margaux wouldn’t be drinking one, and so Marine was being a good host. And he’d have to be a good host and walk around Aix, when he wanted nothing more than to smoke sitting in his armchair with a book of poetry on his lap. He got up from the dining room table and went into the living room, taking two Bolivar cigars out of his humidor, and slipping a cigar cutter and lighter into his jacket pocket.

  Léo stood in the doorway, his winter coat already on, while Marine and Margaux settled themselves into the living room, Margaux Perrot sitting in Verlaque’s favorite chair. Verlaque put on his coat and they went down the four flights of stairs out into the Aix night, the cobblestone streets lit by lamps shedding a golden light. They walked through the Place de l’Archevêché and Léo stopped to read a wall plaque above a fountain. “Who’s this guy?” he asked, looking at the bust, in bas-relief and side profile, of a heavily mustached man from the previous century.

  “His pen name was Marcel Provence,” Verlaque said as he cut his cigar and lit it. “He died in the early 1950s and has been largely fo
rgotten, which is too bad as he saved Cézanne’s studio from being demolished by buying it with his own money. He also wrote an exhaustive survey of every home on the Cours Mirabeau. Marine managed to find me a copy in a used-book store. I can’t imagine what she paid as they’re highly sought after.” He looked over and saw that Léo was losing interest and fumbling with lighting his cigar, so he suggested they get a digestif at the bar around the corner. “I think they have an outdoor heater on their terrace,” he added, seeing that Léo looked cold. They continued walking, passing the cathedral, its medieval stone saints lit up for the evening, and stopped at a small bar that almost shared the north wall of the great church. “Let’s grab that table under the heater,” Verlaque said. “I was hoping it would be free.”

  Verlaque knew the woman who was always behind the bar only by sight and quite liked her. She was short and stocky with bright eyes and a wide smile. He had only ever seen her wear T-shirts and jeans. His favorite T-shirt was a black one that read “Castro” across the front; he once asked her about it and she explained that it wasn’t for Fidel Castro but for a neighborhood in San Francisco. But it was another bartender who came outside to get their order tonight. This one, also a woman, wore a T-shirt even though it was a late December evening, showing no sign of being cold. “What do you suggest to keep us warm?” Verlaque asked.

  “Well, not many of our customers smoke cigars,” she said, “except for those cheap ones dipped in rum, so I’m not sure.” Verlaque smiled, thankful that there were old-time bars like this one, where men who had worked hard all their lives on the railways or cleaning city streets could be comfortable. No tourists and no students.

  Verlaque said, “Donc, deux poires, s’il vous plaît.” He looked at Léo, who smiled in approval. She left, and as she went inside to get their pear eau de vie, Verlaque could see the bar’s interior through a window. At the end of the bar stood the other barmaid, the one he usually saw, wearing the Castro T-shirt again; she was speaking with a tall, wide-backed customer who was facing away from them. Verlaque could hear Léo talking, but he was more interested in what he was seeing, as the barmaid was now arguing with her customer. The customer turned his face and Verlaque saw that it was Père Fernand, from the cathedral.

  Realizing that he was being rude, Verlaque turned to listen to Léo, who was talking about a business venture in North Africa. “Quarries,” Verlaque heard. The large number of trucks and bulldozers that needed to be purchased, and how expensive they were. Verlaque took a sip of the eau de vie that had just been set down on their table and tried to pay more attention to Léo, but found watching the scene inside the bar much more interesting.

  * * *

  Marine tried not to yawn; she had seen that it was 11:00 on the stove’s clock when she was making tea. That meant that it was almost midnight now. She knew now how long it took to smoke certain cigars; she had seen the Bolivars Antoine had selected and she thought an hour and a half. “Have you seen any good expos lately?” Marine asked, using the go-to question raised at almost every Parisian dinner party.

  Margaux sat back and sighed. “The Pierre Soulages exhibition at the Pompidou was sublime,” she said. “I went twice.”

  “Oh, we were invited to the opening,” Marine said. “Antoine lent them a painting for the show. We just got it back.”

  Margaux sat up straight. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, would you like to see it?”

  “Of course!”

  Marine got up, thankful that the cleaning woman had been at the apartment all afternoon, as the painting was in their bedroom. “Follow me,” she said. They walked down the hallway to the bedroom, Margaux making pleasant remarks about the framed photographs that lined the hall’s walls, mostly purchases made by Marine; a few were by her friend Sylvie, from a time when Marine could still afford Sylvie’s work.

  “There it is,” Margaux said when they walked into the bedroom. She stood in front of the enormous painting, its black paint thick and shiny like oil even in the dimly lit bedroom. “They’re not sad, despite the fact that there’s only one color,” Margaux said.

  “I agree.”

  Margaux walked backward, still looking at the painting, and then sat down on the edge of the bed. Marine was surprised at her boldness; she had always thought that beds were intimate places, even when she was young. Her bedroom had always been a sanctuary. She continued looking at the painting when she heard what she thought was a quiet weeping. She turned around to see Margaux Perrot—grande dame of the red carpet—sitting on Marine’s bed, her head in her hands, crying. Marine sat down beside her. “May I help in any way?” Marine asked.

  Margaux got a tissue out of her sweater pocket and blew her nose. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind this evening. It’s moving here, I think. I miss Paris. And it’s Léo, too. I know he’s worried about his business but he won’t confide in me. So my husband is keeping secrets from me, and here I am, away from Paris, where other, younger, actresses are going to snap up all the good roles before I can get back.” She dried her eyes and smiled.

  “I’m sure your agent is looking out for you,” Marine said. She guessed that Margaux was approaching forty, and that part of her blues had to do with the lack of women’s roles at that age and older. At least that’s what she’d read. “You’re not the only actress who lives in Provence, either.”

  “You’re right. I’m just feeling cut off.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you think you could speak to Antoine about Léo?” Margaux asked. “I know that Léo was very worried about money, and now all of a sudden he’s walking around the house whistling, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.” She blew her nose, rather loudly for a film star, thought Marine.

  “Don’t worry,” Marine said. “Don’t forget that Léo’s in the construction business, which I’ve always understood as a business that can go from disaster to triumph overnight. But I’ll see if Antoine can have a chat with him the next time they’re together.” Marine didn’t think that her husband would want to have anything to do with this idea; he hadn’t seen Léo in decades; they didn’t have anything in common except a shared past as undergraduates. And why couldn’t Margaux ask Léo herself?

  Margaux stood up, her face freshened by a quick pinch to each cheek, and ran her hands through her hair to fluff it a bit. “Gorgeous painting,” she said. She turned on her fashionable very high heels and walked out of the bedroom without, Marine mused, thanking her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “We need to get Debra Hainsby back for questioning as soon as possible,” Verlaque told Paulik as they walked toward the Place des Cardeurs. “At the church dinner on Sunday, Florence Bonnet told me something that I’d forgotten about until last night. Debra fed Cole something, I can’t remember what. It might have been a pastry.”

  Paulik looked at the judge with wide eyes and got out his cell phone. He dialed and gave instructions to someone on the other end as he and Verlaque walked under the clock tower.

  Matteo Ricci saw them first. “Here come two cops,” he said as he cleaned off a long carving knife.

  A woman in her early thirties came to stand beside him. “Don’t be paranoid,” she said. She began to arrange cheeses and fresh pasta in their display case, sticking little Italian flags, marked with the price per kilo, in each one. She sized the men up as they got closer; the shorter one had a crooked nose and salt-and-pepper longish hair, and the taller one was bald. She added, “They could be mafia.” She frowned at the fingerprints on the display case’s glass front; she took a sheet of paper towel and window cleaner and began rubbing.

  “That’s not even funny, Vittoria,” Ricci said.

  “Buongiorno,” Verlaque said, resting his hands on their wooden counter. He got out his identification card and Paulik did the same. Ricci looked at Vittoria and rolled his eyes. “Do you speak French?” Verlaque asked in Italian.

&n
bsp; “Of course we do,” Ricci said. He introduced himself and his girlfriend, Vittoria Romano.

  “My French is better than his,” Vittoria said, laughing some more. “I took lessons at the Alliance Française in Perugia.”

  Paulik showed them Cole Hainsby’s photo. “I don’t know him,” Matteo Ricci said.

  “I remember him from Sunday evening’s dinner,” Vittoria said, holding the photograph in her hands. Verlaque saw Ricci give his girlfriend a quick look of annoyance. Vittoria saw it, too, as she now looked at her partner and gestured angrily with her hands. “He was eating all of our mushroom lasagna!”

  Verlaque smiled, trying to make Vittoria feel at ease. It was cold outside but she had rolled up her sleeves to arrange the cheeses and clean the case. He saw an elaborate tattoo on her right forearm and tried to read it. It was of two birds flying, carrying a banner in their beaks with someone’s name written in an old-fashioned font. What looked like a walnut hovered above the birds; whatever the message was, Verlaque was as lost as he usually was with tattoos. The message usually seemed apparent only to the wearer. Another fad he detested.

  “What else did you serve that night?” Paulik asked.

  “Cheese,” Ricci said, crossing his arms. “Including an expensive truffle Pecorino.”

  “I hid the Pecorino from him!” Vittoria said, smiling. She took the photograph once more and studied it. “He wasn’t the man who collapsed, was he?”

  “Yes,” Verlaque said. “He died of poisoning.”

  “In the food?” Ricci asked.

  “Yes, but for the moment we don’t know which dish.”

  “Well, it wasn’t the Pecorino,” Ricci said as he began to load the refrigerator with miniature bottles of Prosecco and Italian sparkling water, signaling that he was finished answering questions.