Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery

by M. L. Longworth

  “Of course,” Léridon replied. “Aix was a Roman spa town.”

  Verlaque sighed. “Thanks, Philippe. I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh, sorry if I sounded uppity. I’ve just never been excited by any…art…like this before. I did some research at the library, and did some asking around. I think this dates from the first or second century A.D.”

  “Who else knows about this?”

  “One of my workmen, the guy who discovered it while digging to install a wine cellar,” Léridon answered. “I’ve had to pay them off to keep them quiet, but who knows how long that will last. Plus, the head research librarian at the municipal library probably suspects something.”

  Verlaque laughed. “You were asking a lot of questions?”

  “Yeah. I kept pestering her for articles on the history of Roman Aix.”

  Verlaque looked over at Léridon, noting his expensive moccasins, open shirt, and tanned forearms. Léridon was right: he probably hadn’t been mistaken for a historian. “And you didn’t want to report the mosaic,” he said.

  Léridon laughed. “Of course not. The librarian showed me articles about people finding Greek and Roman remnants while renovating their houses. Work can be stalled for up to ten years. And I’ve found a whole floor, not just some pieces of jars or a few coins. Who knows what else is down there?” He shone his light around the floor, tracing its zigzag pattern with the light. “It looks like it could have been designed in the 1960s, eh? It’s almost psychedelic.”

  Verlaque laughed. “You’re right.” A tiny bit of bile came up from his throat into his mouth. “Philippe, you need to show me to a toilet, fast.”

  Léridon jumped up and pulled Verlaque to his feet. They ran back across the garden and into the house. Ten minutes later, Verlaque found himself lying on the tiled bathroom floor, his head on a towel. Léridon was sitting next to him, his back against the wall, arms resting on his pulled-up knees. “Feel better?” he asked. “You passed out.”

  Verlaque sat up and wiped his mouth. “I do. Did I throw up?”

  “About a million times,” Léridon said. “No, just twice. What did you have to eat today, my friend?”

  “Only a sandwich, and a shrimp salad.”

  “From a place in Aix?”

  Verlaque wiped his brow with his linen handkerchief. “No, from a highway gas station.”

  “Putain!” Léridon cried, hitting his forehead. “You should never eat anything from those places!”

  “I thought you’d drugged me,” Verlaque said before he could stop himself.

  Léridon let out a loud laugh. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time!”

  Verlaque laughed and said, “Can we go and sit in the living room?”

  Léridon helped Verlaque up for a second time and led him to the living room. Verlaque fell back onto the sofa. “I’ll bring you a blanket,” Léridon said, laughing. “And another glass of water.”

  “Bring some of that whiskey you suggested earlier too,” Verlaque said, taking off his shoes.

  “Sounds like a great idea. I was wishing you’d taken me up on the offer earlier. I’ve had a hell of a day.”

  “Your day?” Verlaque said, leaning back. “Couldn’t have been worse than mine!”

  Léridon returned with two cut-glass tumblers, each with a generous serving of golden whiskey. Verlaque thanked him and sniffed. “Islay?”

  Léridon nodded. “Ardbeg…with a touch of arsenic.” He laughed and toasted Verlaque. “So why was your day hellish?”

  Verlaque looked up. “I got cross-examined by an old nun.”

  Léridon laughed. “Excellent! Did she get a confession out of you?”

  “You could say that. And your day?”

  “My wife finally told me she’s leaving me.”

  Verlaque set his glass down on the coffee table, unsure whether whiskey was a wise choice. “Merde. I’m so sorry.”

  Léridon sighed. “I’ve been waiting for her to do this; it’s not like I didn’t see it coming. The worst part is, she sent me the news via a text message.”

  “Oh God.” Verlaque reached for his glass and took another sip. It tasted good and, oddly enough, settled his stomach. “A text message. Really?”

  “Yep.” Both men remained silent. “Tonight,” Léridon went on. “While watching you toss your cookies…”

  Verlaque laughed. “Thanks.”

  “I decided what to do. I’m going to sell this place. I’ll have to report the mosaic, and then I’ll put the place on the market. Perhaps the city will buy it.”

  “They might,” Verlaque said, although he secretly knew that the city of Aix preferred real-estate transactions that made them a huge profit.

  “And then I’ll go back to Morocco.” Léridon took a gulp of whiskey. “I liked it there. Workmen actually show up on the job site, for one thing.”

  “But they don’t have this,” Verlaque said, lifting up his whiskey glass.

  “No,” Léridon said, “you just have to bring it with you.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Honey and Buttered Toast

  Coffee in bed?” Paulik asked as he fluffed the pillows behind his head and sat up.

  “We need to take it easy this morning,” Hélène said. “Léa got a ride to school with the Villards; they owed me. And I called Olivier and told him I’d be late.”

  Paulik rubbed his eyes. “I need to phone Judge Verlaque, then.” He reached over and grabbed his cell phone. After a short call, Paulik hung up. “He slept in too,” he told Hélène. “Ate something bad yesterday. We’ve agreed to meet at Domaine Beauclaire after lunch. Sound good?”

  Hélène sat on the edge of the bed and sipped her coffee. “That’s great! You mean you’re interested in trying to solve the ‘caper’?”

  Paulik grimaced. “I’ve been wanting to, believe me—as has Judge Verlaque. We also agreed that it may be a good idea to return to the scene of one of the murders and work our way over it again.”

  “When you’ve finished your coffee, come downstairs and we can have breakfast,” Hélène said.

  “Actually, when I finish this coffee, I’m going to roll over and go back to sleep,” Paulik replied. “Wake me up for lunch.”

  Verlaque’s Porsche was parked in the Bonnards’ courtyard when Bruno and Hélène Paulik pulled up. “Coffee?” Élise asked as they came into the kitchen.

  “Please,” Bruno Paulik answered. He looked at Hélène, who said, “I’m actually going to pass. I don’t think I can drink any more espresso. I’ve been living on it since these wine…thefts.”

  Olivier Bonnard jumped up. “I agree,” he said. “Let’s say no to more coffee and try your new white, Hélène.” He looked at Victor and quickly added, “Yours and Victor’s.”

  The boy beamed and then bent toward Hélène. “I bow to the master,” he said.

  Élise Bonnard looked anxiously at Antoine Verlaque. “I’m up for a wine tasting,” Verlaque said. “I always think better with a little wine.”

  “That’s what Dad always says,” Victor said. “I’ll go and siphon some wine from the barrel.”

  “What kind of white is it?” Verlaque asked.

  “Rolle,” Hélène answered. “It’s our premium white-wine grape in Provence, but it’s so underrated, and undervalued. The Italians and Corsicans have been working at elevating its status, and that’s what Victor and I have been trying to do.”

  “By putting it in barrels for a few months?” Paulik asked his wife. “I don’t like that too-oaky taste that was a fad a few years ago.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “We used old barrels we bought from a Burgundian estate, not new ones, so the oak won’t overpower the fruit.”

  “Do they do Rolle in Italy?” Verlaque asked. “I’ve never had it there.”

  Hélène nodded. “You’ve had it, but they call it Vermentino.”

  Victor came back carrying two decanters balanced on a tray. “Et voilà!” he said.

&
nbsp; Élise tried not to sigh too loudly as she got up and gathered wineglasses from the china cabinet. She didn’t approve of drinking in the middle of the afternoon.

  Victor poured everyone an inch of golden wine, and Olivier, unable to hide his excitement, passed the glasses around. “The moment of truth! And may this golden nectar help solve our wine heist!” Olivier said, holding his glass in the air.

  “Hear, hear!” the others bellowed as they all, even Élise, swirled the wine in their glasses, sniffed, and then swirled some more.

  Verlaque put his crooked nose in the glass and inhaled. “It does smell like honey,” he said.

  “And buttered toast,” Bruno Paulik offered.

  Verlaque swirled the wine in his glass and then drank. “If you hadn’t told me,” he said, “I would have guessed that this was a noble Chardonnay, from the Beaune region.”

  Victor did a high five with Hélène.

  “Our Rolle has never tasted like this,” Olivier Bonnard said, closing his eyes and taking another sip. “Don’t tell your grandfather I just said that,” he added, looking at Victor.

  “Where is Grandpa?” Victor asked.

  “He’s getting ready for his boules game,” Élise replied. “Rémy should be here to pick him up any minute.”

  As if on cue, a car swung into the courtyard, stopping with a jerk just a few feet away from the kitchen window.

  “He’s in a rush today,” Élise said, opening the door. “Come in, Rémy!”

  “Rémy’s been our mailman for years,” Olivier Bonnard explained to Verlaque.

  “He’s been the only one I’ve ever known,” Victor said. “He’s one of Grandpa’s best friends too.”

  The group turned to the open kitchen door as a tall, blond man walked in, wearing a lime-green merino-wool suit and carrying a straw hat, as if he had just been on the set of a turn-of-the-century film. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, bowing.

  “M. Thébaud,” Olivier said, getting up to shake the wine expert’s hand. “Do come in.” Hippolyte Thébaud shook hands with the people gathered around the table; Verlaque was quite sure that he had winked at him.

  “My fair judge,” Thébaud said with a slight bow.

  Élise Bonnard gestured for the wine expert to sit down, but he refused a seat with a motion of his hand. “I just love your suit,” she said. Victor snorted.

  “We weren’t expecting you back,” Olivier Bonnard said, throwing Victor a stare.

  “I hadn’t meant to come back,” Thébaud said, “but I found myself fascinated with the games of boules.”

  Olivier looked at Thébaud in wonderment. The wine expert was the last person he expected to play bocce ball. “Boules?” He asked, looking around the table to see if his guests were just as bewildered as he was.

  “Is that your new white?” Thébaud asked, changing the subject.

  Olivier Bonnard quickly poured Thébaud a glass and handed it to him. Thébaud held the glass up toward the ceiling, then swirled it and put it to his mouth quicker than Olivier expected him to. He tossed the wine around in his mouth with a loud slurp, walked over to the kitchen door, and spat the contents outside.

  The group looked on until Verlaque asked, “So…what did you think?”

  “One of the finest Rolles I ever tasted,” Thébaud replied. Victor let out a cheer, and Élise gave her son a look as if to say, “You see, don’t judge a book by its cover.” “It has great strength of character,” Thébaud went on, sipping more of the wine, and swallowing this time. “And it reminds me of a Vermentino I had years ago on the Ligurian coast, at the summer home of a dear friend, the Contessa de…”

  A second vehicle broke Thébaud’s reverie, coming to a roaring stop beside Thébaud’s rental car. “That would be Rémy,” Victor said. “Here for the boules game.”

  “Boules,” Verlaque said, looking at Thébaud with a twinkle in his eye. “You were going to tell us about boules….”

  Élise Bonnard introduced Rémy, who had rushed into the room and then froze when he saw the guests sitting around the kitchen table. He put himself shyly against the kitchen wall, twirling a cap in his hands.

  “Come in, Rémy!” Olivier motioned. “It’s your day off today?”

  “Yes, s-s-sir,” Rémy replied nervously. “I’ve come to pick up Albert for our game. And I’ve also come to…”

  “That can wait,” Thébaud said, stepping out of the shadows. “Taste the wine first.”

  “M. Thébaud!” Rémy said. “I thought you had gone back to Paris.”

  “What’s going on here?” Olivier Bonnard asked. “Do you two know each other?”

  Thébaud smiled. “We met in the village, playing boules.”

  “You’re good,” Rémy said, rocking back and forth on his tiptoes. “A real natural.”

  “Sit down, Rémy,” Olivier said. “And try this white wine we’ve just created.”

  Rémy quickly sat down, bumping into the table. “Um, yes. A little wine will go down well right now.”

  Victor poured the mailman a glass, and Rémy sniffed and then tasted, swirling the wine around loudly in his mouth, like an expert. Hélène hid her smile and winked at Victor.

  “Magnificent,” Rémy replied. “That’s the way Rolle should taste.”

  As the others stared in silence, Élise came back into the kitchen and said, “Albert will be down in a minute, Rémy. He didn’t notice the time go by and is getting ready.”

  “And we should go out and look at the scene of the crime once more,” Paulik said, getting up. Verlaque nodded and gulped the rest of his wine.

  Rémy jumped up. “Eh? The scene of the crime?” he asked. “The wine theft?”

  Hippolyte Thébaud grinned.

  “No, Rémy,” Olivier said. “It has to do with that woman, you know, whose body was found in our vineyard.”

  “Perhaps you should come outside before your father comes down,” Thébaud said to Olivier.

  “We have to show you something!” Rémy added, his head bopping up and down.

  “Rémy, what’s wrong?” Olivier asked, setting down his wineglass and getting up.

  “Are you all right?” Élise asked. “Would you like a glass of water?” She glared at her husband.

  “Um, no, no water. But you need to come out to my van, M. Bonnard, quickly. I have to show you something.”

  “All right, all right,” Olivier said. He and the rest of the group followed Rémy out to his van, a former yellow post-office van that had been painted white. They crowded around its back doors while Rémy fumbled for his keys, dropping them on the gravel.

  Victor bent down and picked up the keys. “Rémy, would you like me to open the doors for you?” he asked.

  Rémy quickly nodded, glancing at the kitchen door. Victor put the key in the lock and opened the van’s doors wide; then he stood back and looked from his father to Rémy. “Rémy,” Victor said, “it’s full of wine.”

  “Y-y-yes.”

  Olivier Bonnard reached in and pulled out a bottle at random. He looked at the label and sighed, handing it to Élise. “Rémy,” she said, passing the bottle on to Victor, “it’s ours.”

  “Did you figure this out?” Olivier asked Hippolyte Thébaud.

  Thébaud replied with a bow.

  “I don’t believe it,” Victor said, looking at the postman. “How could you have done this?”

  “It was, er, tricky,” Rémy replied. “It took us days to gather what was left.”

  “What was left?” Hélène asked.

  “How did you get into our cave?” Olivier asked. “Did you make a copy of the key that hangs in the kitchen?”

  Rémy looked at Olivier Bonnard in shock, his mouth open. “Eh? What’s this? I’ve known you all my life,” he said. “I can’t believe you would accuse me of stealing your wines! Ça alors!”

  “But, Rémy,” Élise said softly, “what are we to think? Where did you get these?”

  “The Old Vines 1964,” Victor said, passin
g a dusty bottle to his father.

  “From everyone around,” Rémy replied, looking anxiously toward the kitchen door once more. “Nobody wanted to admit that they had some of your wine. He figured it out!” the postman said, pointing at Thébaud. “He played boules with us and asked us if we had some of your bottles. Then Roger said that Albert had given him a magnum of 1978, and Jean-Philippe said that he had some 1970s from Albert, and we realized what was going on.”

  “Dad’s giving away our wine?” Olivier asked.

  Thébaud nodded. “That day I came to see your cellars,” he said, “I saw your father leave for his boules game, carrying his leather satchel as if his life’s worth was inside of it, not his boules. I left quickly and followed him into the village, where I saw him stop by the butcher shop and hand the butcher a bottle of wine, and then cross the street to the pharmacy and do the same thing. Disappointingly easy case to break.”

  “Even your maid got some, and Patrice, who cuts Albert’s hair,” Rémy excitedly added.

  “I wanted to make sure that your father wasn’t being forced to give the wine away, so I played boules with the…lads,” Thébaud said. The crowd exchanged looks, each one silently thinking, What would he wear to play boules?

  “As if we would ever force Albert to do that!” Rémy cried. “It was all his own doing!”

  “That’s right,” Albert Bonnard said. The elder Bonnard had just emerged from the house, cradling his bag of boules. “Better our friends than the enemy.”

  “Dad?” Olivier asked, heading for his father. “The enemy?”

  “Les boches.”

  “Dad, the war has been over for more than sixty years,” Olivier said. “We have German friends, and clients.”

  Albert Bonnard hugged his duffel bag.

  “Grandpa,” Victor said, “can I take the bag from you? It looks heavy.” He walked slowly to his grandfather and gently lifted the bag from his arms, raising his eyebrows at his father at the same time.

  “Don’t give them to anyone but our friends,” Albert said. “Now Rémy and I have to go, before we are late for our match.”