Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery

by M. L. Longworth

  A rumbling noise made her turn around again; the church was now busy, with elderly women bringing in armloads of flowers and excitedly whispering to one another. Of course, thought Marine, it was a Saturday in early September: there would be a wedding or two today. She got up off her chair and walked over to a small chapel to light a candle. The south chapels had always been too humid and in disrepair, and Marine noticed that the walls looked even more crumbling and cracked than the last time she had been in the church. She put a two-euro coin in the brass slot and heard the coin fall with a bang. Bending her head and closing her eyes, Marine prayed to whatever spirits she thought might listen to her. She raised her right arm and lightly pressed the far side of her left breast. The bump was still there, like a hard pea, or perhaps a little bigger, an almond. She stood still for some minutes, watching the flames flicker, and tried to drown out the noise in the church behind her. Modern medicine would help her now, not the saints, but she was glad that she had come. She turned around and watched the women rushing about the church, half envious of their Saturday-morning obligation. How nice it must be for them to have this sureness, and routine.

  “Well, well,” a male voice behind her said, “if it isn’t Marine Bonnet.”

  She turned around and saw Père Jean-Luc smiling at her. “Hello, Father,” she said, and shook his hand. She stopped herself from adding, “It’s been a long time,” although the smiling abbot didn’t seem in the least angry that she hadn’t set foot in the church since Étienne de Bremont’s funeral. The monk was discreet enough not to have asked Marine what she was doing in the church, for he had seen her lighting a candle.

  “How do you like it?” he asked, looking up at the organ, which took up most of the mezzanine above the front doors.

  “It’s wonderful,” Marine said. “My parents said it was big, but I had no idea how big.”

  “Your mother had to be convinced that selling wine, a special Cuvée Saint-Jean de Malte, would help pay for the organ,” he said. “But once she set her mind on it, she was one of our best saleswomen!”

  Marine laughed. “I bought a few cases, as did many of my friends.”

  “It was a good rosé, wasn’t it?” he said. “I’m not much of a rosé drinker—I prefer a cold beer when it’s hot out—but that rosé was very fine indeed.”

  Marine smiled and nodded, delighted that a monk would voice an opinion on wines to her.

  “Well, I must go,” he continued. “As you can see, we have a busy day today.”

  “Yes, I see, Father,” she said, taking his hand. “Have a nice day.”

  “You too, Marine. It was lovely to see you.” She watched him walk toward the altar, then turn right and head back into the sacristy—perhaps hoping for a little lunch before the wedding rush hit the church.

  “Is that Mlle Bonnet?” came a woman’s voice from behind her.

  Marine turned around and saw an elderly woman with white hair, a tanned, healthy-looking face, and clear blue eyes. “Ah, Mme Joubert,” Marine said, smiling. “How are you?”

  “Oh, busy!” Philomène Joubert replied, fanning herself. “We have three weddings today, so we are busy with flowers, as you can see! No, Constance, not the lilies there!”

  Mme Joubert was Marine’s neighbor; they shared views of each other’s apartments over the courtyard that separated Marine’s street and the Rue Cardinale.

  “How is M. Joubert?” Marine asked.

  “Seventy-three years old and still working!” Mme Joubert replied. “You couldn’t get him out of the printing shop for all the tea in China. And to think that some people in France want to retire at sixty!”

  Marine smiled, knowing that Mme Joubert meant the Socialist Party and voters. This was one of Antoine Verlaque’s pet peeves as well.

  “If M. Joubert is still working, it’s a good thing that you’re busy with the church, and the choir,” Marine said.

  “Oh! This church! I know it as if I had made it.”

  Marine smiled at Mme Joubert’s curious use of the old Provençal saying. “Were you baptized in Saint-Jean de Malte?” she asked.

  “Oh, heavens no! Far from Aix, let me tell you!”

  “In the north?” Marine suggested.

  “Yes! Rognes!”

  Marine concentrated as hard as she could, trying not to laugh. Rognes was a village about a thirty-minute drive north of Aix. When she had suggested “north,” Marine had been thinking Normandy or Brittany.

  “Came to Aix when I got married,” Mme Joubert continued. “Constance!” Philomène Joubert watched, hands on her thick hips, as her co-volunteer put the wrong bunch of white roses in front of the lectern. “I have to go, Mlle Bonnet,” she said. “Maybe some Saturday we’ll be doing your flowers, eh?”

  Marine made a valiant attempt at smiling. She tried not to think of the lump in her left breast, and of Antoine Verlaque, who hated the institution of marriage. “Perhaps,” she said quietly.

  “I think I’ll try an Ethiopian this time.”

  “Branching out from your usual Italian, are you?” Magali asked.

  “I’m feeling wild today,” Jules answered, enjoying the low-cut T-shirt that Magali wore and her slim-fitting jeans. He was getting used to the dark look that she seemed to be a fan of: extra-dark eyeliner, black nail polish, and extra-dark-red lipstick. Jules contemplated the tiny diamond stud in her left nostril and came to the conclusion that it suited Magali’s long, thin nose. His mother wouldn’t like it, but they were hardly at that stage in their relationship. For now the conversation revolved around the weather, and coffee.

  “Working day?” Magali asked, pushing the sugar bowl toward Jules.

  “Yep,” he replied. “But I have Sundays off. Do you?” Jules hoped that he sounded casual enough.

  “Yes, we’re closed Sundays. A good thing too, ’cause that’s when I go to Mass.”

  He stirred a packet of brown sugar into his coffee and stared at Magali, unsure of what to say next.

  Magali laughed and moved on to the next table. “They sure are gullible in Alsace!” she yelled over her shoulder to Jules. When she had taken the next order, she went back into the café winking. He finished his espresso and waved goodbye, leaving money on the table, then walked down the Rue Chabrier. Sundays would be a good time to ask Magali out, he thought; they could go to the beach or to an exposition in Marseille. He had no idea what she liked to do. He walked to the Palais de Justice, mulling date ideas over in his head; by the time he got to the front doors, he had convinced himself that he couldn’t ask her out—they hardly knew each other.

  Jules could hear loud voices and what sounded like sobbing as he approached the large second-floor office space shared by six officers, Commissioner Paulik, and Mme Girard, the judge’s secretary. He quickened his pace. When he came through the double glass doors, he saw Roger bending down over an elderly man who was sitting on a bench against the wall. “Your wife will be back today, I guarantee it,” Roger said. He looked at Jules and rolled his eyes. “Just like the last time.” Roger winked at Jules.

  “She was gone for a few hours last time,” the man answered. “Not overnight.”

  “Overnight?” Jules asked.

  Roger motioned him off with a raised palm. “Everything’s fine, Officer Schoelcher,” he said in a deep voice, much too polite and professional for the usual Roger Caromb.

  Jules ignored Roger and bent down so that his face was parallel to the old man’s. “When did your wife go missing?” he gently asked.

  The man breathed deeply and replied, “From what I can tell, she left shortly after lunch yesterday. I left the apartment at one-forty-five to return to work, and when I got back, at five-thirty, the dirty lunch dishes were in the sink. Pauline always does the dishes right away.”

  Jules shifted his weight from one leg to the other, trying to ignore Roger’s exaggerated sigh. “And your wife has never done this before?”

  The man looked at Jules with reddened, swollen eyes. “No, of course no
t,” he said quietly.

  Jules stood up and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. He whispered to Roger, “This is serious.” Suddenly an office door opened, and Roger shot Jules a glance that read “Oh no!” Verlaque walked out of his office and said to the officers, “I was on the phone and thought I heard sobbing. What’s going on?”

  Roger grimaced and nodded down in the direction of M. d’Arras.

  “M. d’Arras,” Verlaque said, also bending down on one knee to speak to the old man. “I’m Judge Verlaque. What’s wrong? Is your wife missing again?”

  M. d’Arras nodded, relieved to be in the presence of the juge d’instruction. “Oui. She left, from what I can guess, sometime yesterday afternoon. She hasn’t come back. She has her purse; it’s a big pink Longchamp one that I bought her for her birthday. And that’s all she took; our suitcases and overnight bags are all still in the closet. The neighbors said that Coco—our poodle—was barking most of the afternoon.”

  “And you gave Commissioner Paulik a photograph of Mme d’Arras, didn’t you?”

  M. d’Arras nodded. Verlaque rose to his feet and said to Roger, “Please find that photograph of Mme d’Arras; phone the commissioner at home if you have to.” He reached out a hand to help M. d’Arras up and ushered him into his office, closing the door behind them.

  “A juge d’instruction helping out an old guy whose wife has walked off?” Roger whispered to Jules. “Incroyable!”

  “He has his reasons,” Jules answered. “Let’s find that photograph.”

  “After I slip out for a ciggie,” Roger replied.

  Verlaque’s door opened, and he stuck his head out. “Officer Schoelcher, you’ll head this investigation. I’m surprised to see you both still standing there. Go find that photograph and get on the phones: hospitals, bus and train stations…the usual.”

  “Yes, sir!” the two officers replied.

  Verlaque went back into his office. “We’ll begin a department-wide search for Mme d’Arras, beginning now,” he told the old man. “Does your wife drive, M. d’Arras?”

  “No, she never has.”

  “Bon,” Verlaque said. He sat down opposite M. d’Arras. “I’m a friend of your nephew Christophe’s.”

  M. d’Arras looked up. “Ah, that’s why a judge is helping me.”

  Verlaque ignored the comment and said, “I saw Christophe at a party last night. He’s concerned about the state of his aunt’s mental health. Does she have Alzheimer’s, M. d’Arras?”

  The man nodded. “She shows every sign of having the early stages, from what I’ve been able to learn from reading. But she refuses to go to the doctor. She thinks all doctors are in a medical conspiracy, out to make money from unnecessary operations. She even said that to a specialist who checked a lump in her thyroid.”

  Verlaque breathed deeply. “I see. Where do you think she might go?”

  M. d’Arras shook his head. “I just don’t know. She doesn’t drive, and she doesn’t like traveling. But she’s been speaking of wanting to see her sister Clothilde.”

  “Where does Clothilde live?” Verlaque asked.

  “In the southwest, at Jonquières, near Narbonne.”

  “Jonquières?” Verlaque asked. “Isn’t that a medieval abbey?” He remembered his grandmother Emmeline telling him about a visit she had made to the abbey.

  “Yes,” M. d’Arras answered. “Clothilde is a cloistered nun.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Les Enfants d’Amour

  Hippolyte Thébaud stepped gently out of his rented Clio, not wanting to get his shoes or pants dusty. Olivier Bonnard heard the car and came out of the house, wiping his hands on a tea towel (Élise was doing inventory at her design shop in Aix, and it was Olivier’s turn to cook lunch for the kids and his father, Albert, who was anxious to get to his boules game on time). He tossed the tea towel over his shoulder and shook the young Parisian’s hand. “How do you do,” Bonnard said. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  “Pas de problème,” Thébaud answered. “I have friends in Gordes and was due for a trip. Plus, I enjoy your wines.”

  Bonnard smiled. “Thank you. That’s a compliment, coming from such an expert. Our wines in the south may never be comparable to a Côtes de Nuit, but…”

  “Ah! A Côtes de Nuit! As if!” Thébaud burst out, laughing.

  Bonnard looked at the young man, imagining how he could describe Hippolyte Thébaud to Élise later that evening. He was no good at remembering the names of movie stars, so he couldn’t compare Thébaud’s face to another man’s. He knew that the wine expert’s pale-blue eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips were beautiful, but it was his thick mop of curly blond hair and elegant clothing (a pale-green linen suit with a pink polka-dot bow tie, and white patent-leather brogues) that Bonnard found so striking.

  “So the thief has returned,” Thébaud said, looking up with visible admiration at Bonnard’s manor house and extensive outbuildings.

  “Yes, and we were all here,” Bonnard said. “I noticed the theft early this morning, and my son and I have tried to do an inventory of what was taken. It’s just like the first time—odd bottles here and there, and not necessarily our best.”

  “Really?” Thébaud asked. “Usually, the second time around the thief is more selective.” Thébaud looked behind him at the property’s massive wrought-iron gates and the high stone wall that surrounded the courtyard. “Do they come and go on foot?”

  “That’s my guess. My wife and I are both light sleepers and so would hear a vehicle. That said, we obviously didn’t hear the thief taking bottles out of the cellar.”

  “How do they get over that wall?” Thébaud asked.

  “Ah, I think they come through the vineyard. There’s a small gate beside the house that leads to an old vegetable garden, and beyond that are the vines, open to the road. The lock on the gate has been broken for years. I just remembered about the gate this morning and had my son put a padlock on it.”

  “Are the police coming to check for prints?”

  “Today, in fact. It surprised me that they’d dust for prints for stolen wine.”

  “Wine theft has become big business, and it’s surprisingly common. Every day I read reports of wine thefts, ranging from hundreds of bottles to a couple here and there. It’s amazing what people will do for grape juice.” Thébaud smiled at the irony of his statement, given that he had spent five years in prison for wine theft.

  They walked across the graveled courtyard of the domaine, and Thébaud took in the graceful proportions and yellow stone of the manor house and the outbuildings that flanked it.

  “People will steal just a few bottles?” Bonnard asked.

  “Sadly, yes,” Thébaud replied. “One of France’s top diplomats was just fired from his Hong Kong post last month for sneaking away from a private club with two bottles of old Bordeaux worth more than five thousand euros. I guess he figured he had diplomatic immunity. At least he had good taste.” Thébaud laughed at his own joke. “But most wine thieves are professionals—upmarket criminals like those who steal old masters and antiques, to order. They usually know what they’re going to steal beforehand and then go in and do it—if not the first time, then the second. Your break-in doesn’t sound like that.” Thébaud frowned, as if he was disappointed in the amateur nature of Domaine Beauclaire’s theft. “Lead me to the cellar and I’ll have a look, but if I were to guess right now, I’d say that your thief isn’t a thief at all.”

  Verlaque watched Marine hunched over his dining-room table, writing. She had been oddly silent all weekend, and this morning had joined her parents for Mass at 10:30 a.m., something he could never remember her doing. She said something about wanting to hear the new organ, but her voice didn’t sound convincing, and as soon as she got home she had called Sylvie on her cell phone from Verlaque’s bedroom, with the door closed. But that was not unusual—Sylvie must have a new boyfriend, he finally decided. He hoped.

  “I’ll make dinner,” he said, put
ting down his book.

  “Pardon?”

  “I said I’ll make dinner tonight,” he repeated. “You have an early class tomorrow morning, right?”

  Marine turned around to face him. “Yes, Mondays I start early. Thank you.”

  “Is everything all right?” When he returned yesterday from the Palais de Justice, they had quickly dressed for a fiftieth-birthday party for one of Marine’s colleagues and had not had the chance to speak before falling into bed, exhausted, at 2:00 a.m. That morning, while Marine was at Mass, Verlaque had slipped out to the market on the Place Richelme and bought figs, fresh chèvre, and bacon, which he planned to roast in the oven.

  Marine nodded and then turned back around to her writing. “Yes, everything’s fine. How are your cases going?”

  “We’re interviewing hospital personnel tomorrow,” Verlaque answered. “Those who were in and out of Mlle Montmory’s room. And Mme d’Arras has gone missing again.”

  “Christophe’s aunt?”

  “Yes. She’s been gone since Friday afternoon.”

  “Mon dieu! That’s terrible. Do you have any leads?” she asked.

  “No, not yet. I’ve put a young officer from Alsace in charge of the case, and he has sent her photograph and description out to hospitals, train stations, and so on.” Just then Verlaque’s cell phone rang, and he saw the name of Jules Schoelcher on his phone’s screen. “It’s that officer from Alsace I was just talking about. Excuse me, Marine.”