Crown Jewel

by Christopher Reich

  “Rather a last-minute entry. You kept us on our toes.”

  “Like Monsieur Solier said, I usually fix cars.”

  “Yes, I know. I looked you up. Not often we have mechanics racing. Or are you the owner of the car, too?”

  When registering for the Concours, it was obligatory to indicate the name of the car’s owner. As chair of the racing committee, and thus someone privy to the entry forms, Dragan knew full well that the Daytona did not belong to Simon. “I hope it didn’t cause a problem.”

  Dragan waved off the suggestion. “Same group’s been racing for the last ten years. It will be nice to have someone new to beat.”

  He was around sixty, of indeterminate nationality, with steely blue eyes and silver hair cut very short. Despite the insouciant tone, he was not a nice man. Simon knew this at once.

  “Sounds like you’re afraid that I might win,” he said.

  “That’s not possible,” Dragan replied. “My Bugatti Veyron does zero to sixty in three seconds. Yours manages eight at best. It’s a dinosaur. Beautiful, mind you, but as for racing? I think not.”

  Simon thought it best not to respond. He had his own opinions. The Bugatti Veyron was a two-million-dollar piece of high-tech junk, a publicity stunt trading on the Bugatti name—not an automobile of distinction.

  “Still, it is a scenic course,” continued Dragan. “Very touristic. At your pace you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy the views.”

  Simon made a note to get Harry Mason down there to see what he could do about putting a little more vim into the Daytona’s engine. “I know the course. I have that going for me.”

  Concern tightened Dragan’s already tight face. “Have you driven professionally?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Simon didn’t elaborate and he could see Dragan forcing himself not to inquire further. “I grew up here.”

  “No one grows up in Monaco.”

  “I meant in the area. Marseille. And you, Mr. Dragan: where are you from?”

  “Cap Ferrat. At least for now.”

  Simon looked rudely at his watch. “Excuse me. I have to run. I have a car to repair.”

  Dragan didn’t smile at the gibe. He watched Simon leave without another word.

  Outside, the wind had freshened. The ocean was a flurry of whitecaps. Gusts forced women to grab their skirts and men to hold on to their hats.

  As Simon walked, he tried to place Dragan’s accent. Central European? Russian? Further east, maybe? He wasn’t sure. He decided that Dragan reminded him of a senator from ancient Rome. The one who’d stabbed Caesar.

  Chapter 19

  Vika arrived at the headquarters of the police judiciaire at 9 Rue Suffren Reymond at exactly ten o’clock. It was a four-story concrete slab sandwiched between other like buildings a block up from the port. She gazed up at its angular, undistinguished facade, thinking that surely it deserved an award for being proudly ugly and entirely forgettable at the same time. The word POLICE stood above the entry in large red block letters that she could tell lit up at night.

  At the reception, she gave her name and asked for the commissaire.

  “He is expecting you,” said a secretary without meeting her gaze. “Please sit.”

  Vika looked at the row of plastic chairs and decided to remain standing. From the start it had been a difficult day. A day for confronting the past, for taking a long hard look at herself, and for coming to terms with the present.

  It had begun at five, when daybreak was two hours away and the bed was suddenly her worst enemy. Unable to sleep, she’d risen and visited the hotel’s fitness room, where she’d spent an hour on the elliptical. After a breakfast of coffee and toast, she’d put on her sensible shoes and made her way to Princess Grace Hospital to claim her mother’s body. It wasn’t her first visit to a morgue. All of her family had predeceased her, excepting her son. She was expecting the institutional lights, the odor of tart disinfectant that made her eyes water and set her instantly on edge, the alien environment that screamed “This is not a place where the living belong.” Nonetheless, the sight of the corpse, partially burned, the face disfigured, the neck swollen grotesquely, had upset her. She hadn’t expected to cry.

  A daughter should not have to look upon her mother’s lifeless body when they hadn’t seen each other in years, not when the last time they’d spoken her mother had been blind drunk, and mostly not when there wasn’t a detail about her death that made a whit of sense.

  A visit to the mairie, or town hall, followed. There she’d signed a raft of papers, necessary to officially proclaim her mother deceased. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d signed her name. The paperwork had calmed her, if only by blunting her emotions.

  And now the police.

  A door slammed farther back in the building. Footsteps advanced down the hall. A brisk, officious man dressed in his formal uniform, silver epaulets, a braided cordon hanging from his shoulder, approached her. “Hello, Madame la…”

  “Ms. Brandt.”

  The man bowed his head. “I wasn’t sure how to address you. I am Rémy Le Juste, commissaire of the Police Urbaine. Follow me.”

  Le Juste was fit and bald and walked as if on parade, which Vika imagined he thought he was. Three officers, also in formal uniforms, lined the corridor, backs to the wall, heads bowed. She wished them good morning and followed Commissaire Le Juste into his office. He showed her to a chair facing his desk and waited until she sat before taking his own seat.

  “So,” he began. “You have been to the hospital and to the town hall.”

  “Yes. Very efficient,” said Vika, with a nod of the head. “I appreciate all you’ve done.”

  “Only our duty. It is a tragedy.”

  “Thankfully no one else was hurt.”

  “This is true.” Le Juste inquired about her trip and her lodging, showing surprise that she was staying in the hotel when she had other options.

  Vika scooted to the edge of her chair.

  “Please, Commissaire, can you walk me through the incident again?” she asked. “I was distraught when we spoke the other night. The surprise…you can imagine.”

  She was lying, at least a little. The news, sudden though it was, had not been entirely unexpected. It wasn’t her mother’s passing so much as the details surrounding the accident that caused her agitation.

  Three nights earlier, Le Juste began, Vika’s mother, Stefanie, age seventy-two, had left her apartment alone and driven her Rolls-Royce convertible to the Grande Corniche, where she guided the car west, in the direction of Villefranche and Nice.

  (Vika knew the route well. The Grande Corniche was a narrow, curvy, constantly hazardous road running along the crest of the mountains from Monaco to Nice. It had hardly been improved since Napoleon had built it two hundred years earlier.)

  A few kilometers past the turnoff for the N4 autoroute, she’d missed a curve, crashed through a guardrail, and driven straight off the cliff. From the trajectory of the car’s flight, it was estimated that she was driving well over the speed limit, probably faster than one hundred kilometers per hour. There were no skid marks. The automobile fell one hundred meters before landing on its roof and tumbling a further distance down the mountainside. There had been a fire. At some point, Vika’s mother had broken her neck. Death was instantaneous, the doctor had assured him.

  All this Commissaire Le Juste explained with his deepest sympathy.

  “And this occurred at what time?” Vika asked.

  “Just after midnight.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “The clock.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The car had an analog clock in the dashboard that stopped at the time of the accident.”

  Meaning, Vika understood, that it had stopped when the car smashed onto the rocks below.

  “And there was no one else in the car?”

  “No, madame.”

  “Just my mother?”

  Le Juste shifted in his chair. It
was apparent that he resented her questions. “Ah, oui. She was intoxicated.”

  “Intoxicated people often drive with others.”

  “I have the report for your inspection…”

  “She was always intoxicated,” said Vika. “That’s why she never drove.”

  She clasped her hands in her lap and sat up straight, a teacher speaking to a difficult student. “Monsieur le commissaire, my mother had a detached retina in her right eye. It was difficult for her to drive under any circumstance. At night, it was impossible due to the refraction of light from oncoming headlights.”

  “Is that so?” asked Le Juste.

  “It is. She rarely left her apartment. When she did, she had a helper who drove. A woman who did her shopping and took her to doctor’s appointments.”

  Le Juste considered this as long as politeness demanded. “And yet, that evening she did,” he said.

  “That’s my point. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Madame Brandt, I am a policeman. My opinions are not my own. They are dictated by the evidence. In this matter, the facts are unequivocal.”

  “Then you don’t have all the facts.”

  Le Juste sat forward, eager to parry her retort. “Is there something you are not telling us? If so, please. I’m waiting. I welcome any evidence you wish to add to the record.”

  Vika did not answer. There was something else, something that in her view was sufficient to launch an investigation. She doubted, however, that the police would find a voice mail left by a woman in a blackout drunk reliable grounds to do so.

  “Vika, are you there? Can you hear me?” her mother had begun on the voice mail that constituted their last communication. Her words were clear, her diction impeccable. “I’m in trouble. You’ve got to come down and help me. There’s a man. He wants to know about the family. I didn’t tell him anything. Of course, you know I’d never. But he keeps asking. I’m worried for you. For Fritz. I didn’t say a word. Please, darling. I thought he was my friend, but now I’m worried. He scares me.”

  At that point, the conversation took a sharp turn. The diction lost its precision. The voice grew clotted. Vika had realized that her mother was drunk. Very drunk.

  “You were always your father’s favorite. Far more than I was. The bastard. He was a sick man. You know that, don’t you? He got what he deserved.” A crazed laugh, then a lengthy pause, a rattling of glass in the background, and her mother started over in her clear aristocratic voice, as if the phone had just picked up and she was leaving her message all over again.

  “Vika, are you there? Can you hear me? I’m in trouble. You’ve got to come down and help me. There’s a man.”

  “No,” said Vika. “I don’t have any additional evidence. I was hoping that enlightening you about my mother’s condition would lead you to reexamine the accident.”

  “And open a criminal case? Are you suggesting she was murdered?”

  “No,” said Vika, and she meant it. “I’m suggesting she may not have been alone that night. All I know is that she could not…she would not…have driven her car up to the Grande Corniche—then, or at any other time—all by herself. It’s out of the question.”

  “Do you have an idea who she might have driven with? A name, perhaps? If so, we would be more than happy to speak with this person.”

  “If I had, I certainly would have told you. I mean, just where in the hell was she supposed to be going?” Vika said in frustration, at once angry with herself for losing her calm.

  “I don’t think you should be considering murder, but perhaps something else.”

  Vika flinched. At least he was polite enough not to say it. Suicide. The thought had crossed her mind and vanished immediately thereafter. Her mother was a devout Catholic. Besides that, she was happy, living in her own little world, manufacturing all her byzantine plots and rumors, having her vodkas, dressing for lunch and dinner, and ordering her helper, poor Elena, hither and yon. Le Juste was wrong, but Vika couldn’t fault his logic.

  “Madame?” Le Juste pushed a box of tissues she didn’t need across the desk. Vika pushed them back. After a moment, she said, “What about the tapes from her apartment?”

  “Tapes?”

  “Security cameras. Something showing her driving out of the garage that night. Or one from the lobby or elevator. The building has cameras everywhere. Have you looked at them?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Le Juste considered this. “We would need to open a criminal investigation in order to gain access to the building’s security apparatus. If, that is, there are tapes and they are still intact.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Security systems are all the same. After a few days the tapes or discs record over themselves. It is a question of storage space.”

  “Is that so?” Vika’s smile was exquisite torture. “Then we had better check today.”

  Le Juste squirmed in his chair, already shaking his head.

  “We won’t know until we look,” Vika continued. “Given everything I’ve just told you, I would think you would be as interested as I am to see what’s on those cameras.”

  “It is not so simple,” said Rémy Le Juste, with offense. A line had been crossed. A diplomatic incident risked. “Only a juge d’instruction can issue a subpoena for such tapes. It is not a question of just ‘checking.’ A formal case must be opened and for that we must have grounds.”

  “Perhaps the tape will provide the grounds.”

  “The facts are clear, madame. Your mother’s Rolls-Royce drove off the Grande Corniche a little after midnight with a sole occupant. It was an accident. Nothing more.”

  “I thought the job of police was to investigate. What are you afraid of finding?” Vika stood. “I’ve taken up too much of your time already. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Le Juste rose and made to come around the desk. Vika stopped him with an icy glance. “Thank you again.”

  Le Juste sank back into his chair. “My assistant will give you your mother’s affairs.”

  Vika left the station, a tight smile on her face, lips pursed to keep her from shouting exactly what she thought of Le Juste and his “grounds.” The meeting had not gone as expected. She’d arrived certain that when told about her mother’s condition, Le Juste would be quick to adopt her point of view and zealously launch an investigation into her mother’s death. That was not the case.

  Gazing with disdain at the building’s unwelcoming facade, she crossed the street and walked into the first café she saw. Inside, she set the plastic bag containing her mother’s effects on the table and ordered an espresso. She drank it slowly, pondering her next steps. Over the years, she’d developed what some called a “contrary nature.” The word “no” had stopped having its intended effect. Instead, it acted as an accelerant, urging her to follow her own inevitably more logical and well-reasoned course of action. In this case, however, she didn’t know where to begin.

  First things first.

  One last inventory.

  Vika finished her espresso and opened the plastic bag holding her mother’s affairs.

  One watch, Papa’s old Breitling Navitimer, which had hung like a millstone on Mama’s wrist.

  One diamond ring. Eight carats, pear-shaped, so white it threatened to blind you, as near flawless as such a large stone can be, set on a platinum band.

  Vika couldn’t imagine wearing such a thing. It was an affront, a million-dollar middle finger raised at the rest of the world. The rest of the world being not only the less moneyed but the untitled. Those poor lambs not mentioned in the pages of the Almanach de Gotha.

  One wedding band.

  Not from husband two—Bismarck, they had called him because he claimed to be German, but he wasn’t. Not really. It was the wedding ring Papa had given her. A simple gold band. A tear came to Vika’s eye as she rolled the ring between her fingers. Her mother and father had truly loved each other, if in their own strange way.

&
nbsp; Vika decided that she’d wear it when she remarried. Or rather, if. Any man who opted to marry into the family would have to be crazy, and thus, by definition, unsuitable.

  She swiped angrily at her cheek and proceeded through her mother’s effects.

  One Cartier tennis bracelet.

  One Bulgari serpenti wristlet.

  One wallet. A single credit card. The stupid black one for snobs only. No driver’s license. No other identification. No money. It was a point of pride that Mama never carried paper currency. And tucked inside a fold, photos of Vika and Fritz. It’s just the two of us now, Vika thought, looking at her son. The rest are all gone.

  One pair of sunglasses. Black aviators. Odd for someone to take with them on a midnight drive. But odd enough to constitute grounds for an investigation?

  She set them down.

  The bag was empty.

  It took Vika a moment to realize that something was missing. Not just something, but the most important thing.

  She ran her fingers through the bag, though she could see perfectly well that nothing more was inside.

  Vika clasped her hands and put them on the table. When she was angry or upset, which was far too often, she made herself sit still and take a deep breath. The ring bearing the family crest was missing. A chunk of fourteen-karat gold with their ancient coat of arms expertly carved into a square face. Two hundred years old, and itself a replica of those that came before it. In all her life, Vika had never seen her mother without it. And before her, Papa the same.

  “He wants to know about the family…I didn’t say a word.”

  A chill gripped Vika. She hadn’t given those particular words much thought. It was her mother’s fear of being harmed that had roused Vika’s concern. But now, with the ring missing, she knew she’d discounted them too soon. Maybe he wasn’t just asking but digging for information about the family’s most private affairs.

  Vika turned her head in the direction of the police station. Was the ring enough to rouse Le Juste’s concern, too?

  Of course it wasn’t. She had the feeling that Le Juste’s mind had been made up.