by ML Longworth
“They must be the classmates of Étienne’s son,” Marine whispered.
“They’re adorable,” Sylvie answered. The kids were silent, most of them looking straight at the coffin or trying to look at Étienne’s son, who was in the first pew with his mother and siblings. Marine didn’t want to look at Isabelle de Bremont, for fear of feeling like a voyeur. She felt eyes on her, and she slowly looked behind her toward the back of the church. Verlaque was leaning against a stone pillar, staring at her.
Toward the front of the nave, on the north side, opposite the chapel, were thirty or so lawyers dressed in their black robes. Marine saw Jean-Marc, who nodded and raised his palm. Marine did the same and smiled. She noticed Yves Roussel sitting with the mayor and her husband a few pews behind the immediate family. Roussel took out his phone, looking at a text message. Such bad taste, Marine thought. Verlaque was pacing up and down the side aisle, looking into the crowd as if searching for someone. He stopped and said something to Jean-Marc, who looked into the crowd as well. Jean-Marc obviously didn’t find what, or who, they were looking for, and shrugged to Verlaque. Verlaque then reached into his suit pocket and took out his cell phone and walked toward the doors, followed by Roussel, who noisily left his seat and almost ran out of the church.
Père Jean-Luc, the eldest of the Dominican priests at Saint-Jean-de-Malte, walked across the altar toward Étienne’s casket and addressed the congregation. “On behalf of Isabelle de Bremont and the Bremont family, I’d like to thank you all for coming today,” he said. The priest then looked at the children and continued, “We are going to begin this ceremony with something a little out of the ordinary. The classmates of Raphaël, who are seated here beside me, have each written a letter or drawn a picture of heaven for the Bremont family. I would like to ask the children to come up now and place your offerings around the casket.” The children slowly got up and one by one knelt down and placed their drawings and letters in a circle around the box that held Étienne’s body. Marine’s eyes welled up with tears, and Sylvie was openly crying, as she did at every wedding and funeral.
They were too far away to see the drawings, but from where she sat, Marine could see that most of them were awash with bright greens and blues: trees, grass, and sea, she imagined. Marine’s drawing would have been much the same, but she would have added splashes of dazzling pink to represent the bougainvillea that climbed up the yellow stone walls of Paradiso, her nickname for the Ligurian medieval village where she and Verlaque had once spent a two-week holiday. They fell into each other’s arms and laughed when they stood on their vacation apartment’s rooftop terrace that first night—there were views of the Mediterranean on three sides, and behind them sat the pink and yellow Baroque church, paid for by proud villagers in the seventeenth century. Mornings were spent swimming in the crystal clear sea, reached by a series of stone steps that led down from the village. They would climb back up to the apartment for lunch, delicious pastas that Verlaque would cook, sweet plump peaches for dessert, followed by a nap, the sea air gently blowing the bedroom’s white linen curtains. They would wake near three o’clock, ready for strong Italian coffee, and would work or read until six, and then walk back down to the sea for a last swim, sometimes chatting with the other villagers who kept to the same routine. Dinner was eaten on their terrace, or in the restaurant in the village, also with sea views, and run by an eccentric man from Genoa who had fallen in love with a village girl in 1959 and had never left. They vowed to keep the village’s identity a secret, even to close friends, and although Marine knew this Italian coast well—she had been coming here with her parents since she could walk—she had never stayed in that particular village and couldn’t imagine how her parents had missed it.
She looked over at her parents now, sitting with Mathilde Bley, and she realized that it was entirely possible that they had never set foot in Paradiso—their vacations were much different from hers. M. and Mme Bonnet came from a generation of French civil servants who walked—no, hiked—on holiday, traveling yearly to the same spot, their sandwiches made up that morning and carried in a backpack, many of their foodstuffs having been purchased in France. Marine never knew if this was because they thought the Italian products more expensive or not as good. Probably a bit of both. No visits to local restaurants, no hedonistic activities at all, save for a glass of French rosé in the evening. Luckily they brought with them, on each August holiday, an older cousin of Marine’s, who would take Marine to the sea during the day, both of them happy not to be walking in the hot, dusty olive groves.
Marine faded in and out through the rest of the service. Eric Bley and a filmmaker at Souliado Films gave excellent eulogies, concentrating on Étienne’s life and his dedication to his family and his art. Marine thought it strange that François, Étienne’s closest living relative, didn’t speak. She looked at the people in the first few pews and realized that she hadn’t seen François that morning. She leaned over to Sylvie and whispered, “Étienne’s brother isn’t here.”
“That’s weird. Maybe he’s stuck in the back,” Sylvie said. “The church is packed to the gills.”
Once the ceremony was over, the bells began their slow ringing, and about half of the congregation started walking up the rue du Maréchal Joffre, toward Aix’s cemetery. It was warmer outside than it had been in the church, and the sky was less gray than earlier.
At the graveside a large group of friends and family gathered around, most of them donning designer sunglasses because of the sharp sunlight. Marine thought it strange to see mourners wearing Ray-Bans. She could hear the military academy students running around the track next door, some of them laughing and talking. Life goes on. Père Jean-Luc said another prayer, and Isabelle de Bremont walked up to the hole in the ground, picked up a fistful of earth, and threw it onto the casket. The rest of the guests formed a line and followed her example. Isabelle’s sister Sophie, whom Marine knew but had never spoken to, stood by herself and was weeping uncontrollably.
As Marine waited in line to toss in her dirt, she felt her cell phone moving around in her coat pocket. On the walk over Marine had turned her phone on to vibrate mode, in case someone called from the university—she had canceled two classes to come to the funeral. She jumped out of the line and picked it up.
“Are you at the cemetery?”
It was Verlaque. No introduction as usual.
“Yes, of course,” Marine replied curtly.
“I need your help. Are you still coming over tonight?”
Marine considered canceling. “Tonight?” she asked, hesitating.
“Yes, remember?”
“I don’t know if I can make it, Antoine.”
“Marine, François is dead.”
“What?” Marine said, cupping her hand over around her phone.
“Didn’t you notice that he wasn’t at the funeral?” asked Verlaque, not waiting for a reply. “He was found dead in the pool at the château this morning. The caretaker has been taken in for questioning. This time it’s clear that the death wasn’t an accident. That’s two deaths now, both in Saint-Antonin, and I think the deaths are now linked to that place or the past. I need to quickly understand the history of that family, and since you were connected with them, I may even need you to come to the Var and question Auvieux’s sister with me. She’s a cold fish, but since you knew her when she was younger—”
Marine cut him off and asked, “Jean-Claude? Why is he being questioned? Did he see anything?”
“No, he claims he was in the olive grove when it happened.”
“Claims?” Marine asked. “Antoine, you trust Jean-Claude, don’t you?”
“I want to, believe me.” Verlaque paused and then quickly added, “Can we forget about our past for a moment, and I’ll explain everything tonight?”
Chapter Twelve
The rue d’Italie was Marine’s neighborhood shopping district
and a street that still had everything one needed for decent living—two boulangeries, three butcher shops, a pharmacy, two flower shops, a wine store, a cheese shop, a hardware shop, one travel agent and two realtors, a health food store she had never set foot in, and a handful of cafés. Marine had gone out of her way to support these small shops ever since her friend André’s cheese shop had had to close due to the ridiculous rise in Aix’s rents and fewer people buying good cheese. Since André had moved to Marseille, where business was even worse, his former shop had been turned into three different clothing stores, each lasting less than a year. André told her that his profession was a dying one—young people are no longer interested in traditional métiers. Cheese sellers get up with the dawn to receive their deliveries and butchers drive to the abattoir at 4:00 a.m. It is easier to work at the Gap. She reminded herself to call André to see how he was doing.
A teenager bumped into her, saying pardon, and Marine realized that she had been looking at stainless steel Italian garbage cans, displayed in the window of the hardware store, for over five minutes. She couldn’t believe what was happening: that Antoine Verlaque was back in her life, Étienne was dead, and François had been killed. “Murdered,” she mumbled aloud. She shuddered, and then quickly walked down a side street to a clothing boutique owned by one of her best friends, Vincent. Vincent sold men’s clothing, very traditional suits that were exquisitely cut, although he was beginning to branch out into designer items and held the sole rights in Aix for the new, exclusive line of Levi’s women’s and men’s high-end jeans. Perhaps some shopping was what she needed.
Marine opened the glass door to his shop and was met with a blast of air-conditioning. “Do you really need the air-conditioning in April?” she asked, when she saw Vincent.
“Chèrie! You look great!” Vincent said as he embraced Marine and gave her not two but four bises. “My clients get hot in the changing rooms,” he answered. “If they’re comfortable trying on clothes, they’ll buy more.” The two old friends exchanged pleasantries—their families had been close for years, and Marine had been in the same class as Vincent’s older sister, Josie. Vincent then turned serious and said in a high-pitched whisper, “It’s terrible about Étienne de Bremont, isn’t it? I saw you at the funeral, but you were miles away.”
Marine smiled at Vincent’s comment, not sure if he intended the pun—she may have been far from Vincent in the church, but she had also been miles away in thought. “Yes, I was.”
“Josie couldn’t come down for it from Paris, but she’s coming this weekend. Maybe we can all get together for a drink.”
“Sure. It will be nice to see her again. It’s been years,” Marine said.
“It was beautiful, wasn’t it?”
“Uh?”
Vincent reached out and grabbed Marine’s shoulders. “Coucou! Marine! Earth to Marine! The funeral!”
“Oh! Yes. Yes, it was beautiful. Those children . . .”
Vincent stood on the balls of his toes and made quick flapping motions with his hands. “And those lawyers! In their black robes!”
Marine laughed out loud. Wanting to change the conversation, not because she didn’t want to speak of the funeral, but because she couldn’t tell Vincent that François was also dead, she said, “I need to get a pair of those cool jeans.” She adored Vincent, but there was no way she could tell him that François had been murdered, not unless they wanted all of Provence to know about it, and half of Paris. She still couldn’t believe it herself.
“Let’s see,” Vincent said, as he held on to her waist and hummed a bit. “You’re a thirty.”
“I was a twenty-nine last time,” Marine said. She had gained weight over the winter, a combination of both she and Sylvie breaking up with their boyfriends at roughly the same time and her preference for winter foods—she was a meat-and-potatoes, cheese-and-red-wine kind of person. Her current boyfriend, Arthur, was a vegetarian, and she realized now, remembering him eat, that he didn’t seem to enjoy food, or at least it wasn’t something they talked about.
“I thought so, but I didn’t want to say anything. Besides, you’re so pretty that it doesn’t matter.
“I want you to try on these,” he said, pulling out a size 30 with bleached-out legs and rear pockets that looked as if packs of cigarettes had been burned into them. Marine liked them, despite the gimmicky bleach. She took them into the fitting room and continued talking to Vincent, every now and then poking her head out from behind the velvet curtain.
She came out of the stall and turned around in front of the mirror. “These are great,” she exclaimed. Marine looked at herself in the mirror, coming to terms, at thirty-five years of age, with the curly auburn hair that she could never seem to do anything with, her hawkish nose, and full reddish lips. Despite her faults, she still managed to turn some heads, a feat in a town like Aix, full of gorgeous, tiny twentysomethings.
“Perfect fit, they make you legs look longer,” Vincent said. “You have short legs for a tall woman. You’re all torso, which is a look I happen to like. Your inseam is about thirty-two, in American measurements, but I gave you a thirty-four so you could wear boots with heels.”
“You’re an expert, Vincent,” Marine said, rubbing his arm. “Why don’t you open a women’s boutique?”
“I’m thinking of it, chèrie,” he answered. “You know I prefer dressing women—they are so much more sensitive and daring than men when it comes to clothing. I just need to find the right space—there’s nothing interesting for rent or for sale at the moment in Aix. Almost every day I get realtors coming in here asking me if I want to sell. Times have changed since we were kids, non?” Vincent took ahold of Marine’s shoulders and looked at her. “And since we’ve known each other for so long, I can see that something is bothering you. What’s going on, kiddo? I can see it in your big green eyes.”
She lowered her voice and said, “Antoine Verlaque is investigating Étienne’s death.”
“Ah, that’s it. I knew there was something. I saw him at the funeral, but he left early. Why should he investigate it?” Vincent asked.
“Charles and Eric Bley asked for an inquest.”
Vincent nodded, not quite sure what an inquest was, but he did like dressing Eric Bley. The man had lovely wide shoulders and quite daring taste when it came to jackets and accessories. Vincent pointed a finger at Marine and said, “I hope you’re over that big Verlaque ape.”
“Getting there,” Marine replied, smiling.
“I feel so sorry for the Bremont family, especially Isabelle. At least François and Étienne got to see each other last week.”
“How so?” Marine asked, her voice cracking at sound of François’s name.
“François came into the shop last week and bought this fantastic blue-velvet Pierre Cardin suit. It was gorgeous on him! He looked like he walked out of a painting!”
“Last week he was in Aix?” Marine asked, surprised. “When?”
“Let me think.” Vincent continued, “Near the beginning of the week, Monday or Tuesday, if I had to guess. Yes, because I took Wednesday off and left the girls in charge of the store, and I went to Saint-Tropez to work on my tan. Do you want to know what he talked about?”
“Sure,” Marine said, pretending to be only casually interested.
“He was telling me about the beautiful blonde models he has on his boat. He must think I’m straight.” Vincent paused and looked at himself in the mirror—he was petit in size and was wearing a flowered women’s blouse and had sandy colored hair with long bangs that he was constantly tossing out of his face. “No,” he answered his own question, “he can’t think I’m straight.” Vincent leaned in and whispered, “Everyone knows the girls are Russian prostitutes. The Russian Mafia is everywhere on the Côte these days.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know,” Vincent s
aid, rocking back and forth on the back of his heels and smiling an impish grin. “Also, Étienne and Isabelle de Bremont were in here about a month ago, and I overheard them arguing about François and the château.”
“That doesn’t sound very discreet of them,” Marine said. “To be talking out loud of such affairs.”
“They couldn’t help it. Étienne was in the changing room, trying something on. He couldn’t come out to talk because he was half naked, and Isabelle kept tucking her head into the dressing room, you know, as wives tend to do. They probably thought no one could hear because of the thick curtains, and we had some music on, but I was in my back room, my office and the space where we do the alterations. The wall in the changing room doesn’t go all the way to the top, so I could hear everything,” Vincent continued. “Anyway, they were arguing about the château.” He gave Marine a quick, worried look and continued. “Don’t tell anyone. It isn’t good to be speaking of the dead this way. So, Isabelle said that she wanted to sell it, that she was tired of being penniless, and what good was the château if no one in the family used it? And she didn’t want him to waste money on a suit.”
“It surprises me that Isabelle would say that.”