by ML Longworth
“Maybe, but I think he’s our number one suspect now. What a motive! Kill both brothers and you get the château. It’s almost as big as Dalí’s château in Vauvenargues!”
“Picasso’s,” Verlaque corrected him. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow, okay?” He had a gut feeling that Auvieux was hiding more than his ancestry. He hung up and called Marine’s cell phone. He got her voice mail and decided not to leave a message. Marine had said that she was seeing Sylvie that evening, and it was still early enough to call. He dialed Sylvie’s home number, and she picked up on the second ring. “Hallo?”
“Salut, Sylvie. I hope it isn’t too late to call.”
Sylvie, recognizing Verlaque’s voice, said, “No, it’s fine. Charlotte is sleeping, and I’m catching up on some bad television.”
Verlaque snorted. He hated French television.
Sylvie ignored him and said, “I assume you’re looking for Marine, but she left hours ago. She went to Le Mazarin, to meet Jean-Marc.”
“Thanks,” Verlaque said.
“De rien,” Sylvie replied, trying to watch her program, a soap opera filmed in Marseille.
“But I just called her cell phone and there’s no answer.”
“She’s probably sleeping,” Sylvie said, yawning, as if the word “sleep” had suddenly given her the idea that she too was tired. She had a class at nine in the morning. Sylvie usually refused to accept any morning classes—her seniority allowed her that privilege—but by taking the nine o’clock class she had every Friday off, so she really couldn’t complain.
“Thanks anyway,” Verlaque said. “Salut.”
“Yeah, bye,” Sylvie answered. Feeling guilty that perhaps she was too obvious in her dislike of Verlaque, she then added, “Take care, Antoine.” After Verlaque hung up, Sylvie yelled into the phone’s receiver, “Snob!” She put down the phone, pulled the blanket around her on the sofa, and happily continued watching Plus belle la vie.
Verlaque called Jean-Marc’s cell phone after getting the answering machine on Marine’s home phone. “I was almost asleep, Antoine,” Jean-Marc said groggily.
“Sorry. So you aren’t at Le Mazarin anymore,” Verlaque apologized.
“No, Marine didn’t stay long, if you’re looking for her. She ran away in a flurry, saying she was meeting someone—a man, I think she said. I thought she might be meeting you, as a matter of fact.”
“No, we weren’t meeting. Thanks . . . sorry to have wakened you.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Oui, oui,” Verlaque replied. “Just a communication breakdown.”
“Okay, then, see you around,” Jean-Marc replied before hanging up. He put his pillow over his head—his aged neighbor was watching some idiot soap opera with the volume turned up to maximum.
Verlaque put the car in gear and started driving, and then it dawned on him—Marine was with Arthur. He drove home slowly and illegally parked his Porsche in the cobbled square below his apartment, putting his badge in the window. He didn’t feel like putting the car in the garage. He walked up the stairs to his fifth-floor flat—he never begrudged the stairs. In his teens and twenties Verlaque had been a natural athlete and more-than-adequate rugby player, but since moving to Aix and becoming a judge, his daily exercise routine consisted of climbing the stairs that led to his penthouse apartment, walking around Aix, and occasionally renting a sailboat in Marseille for the day.
He relit his 898; it had gone out in the car and he didn’t want to waste time pulling over to relight it. He made himself an espresso, walked over to the stereo, put on a Miles Davis CD, and sat down in his brown leather club chair, which had been a gift from his parents for his thirtieth birthday. Verlaque drank his espresso in two sips and then took a long drag on his cigar, quickly blowing the smoke up toward the ceiling. He rested his head on the back of the club chair and closed his eyes. His legs were crossed and his right leg began to slowly rock back and forth to the music. He stayed like that for some time, smoking and thinking, until he realized that the CD had ended. He picked up the anthology of Philip Larkin’s poems that was usually sitting beside his club chair and opened to a page at random. It was a short poem, and it immediately reminded him of his relationship with Marine. Only he couldn’t figure out who would be reciting the poem: he or Marine.
Within the dream you said:
Let us kiss then,
In this room, in this bed,
But when all’s done
We must not meet again.
Hearing this last word,
There was no lambing-night,
No gale-driven bird
Nor frost-enriched root
As cold as my heart.
He put the book down and closed his eyes for a few seconds, then got up and made himself another espresso and leaned against the kitchen counter, drinking it slowly. He smoked some more, and just where the end of the cigar starts to burn the smoker’s mouth a bit, he paused and looked at the kitchen clock. It was not yet midnight but still felt too late to make any phone calls. He put his cup in the sink and set his cigar in an ashtray, said aloud, “Too bad,” and dialed Jean-Claude Auvieux’s phone number. Verlaque was thinking of Marine, bothered that she wasn’t answering either of her phones. The knot in his stomach was getting tighter and tighter. The caretaker picked up the phone after several rings and said, “Hallo?”
“I’m so sorry to ring you so late, M. Auvieux,” Verlaque said, realizing that he was now using a much more formal salutation in speaking to the caretaker than he had during their dinner.
Auvieux, hearing the judge’s voice, said, “It’s fine . . . I had only just gone to bed. Is there a problem?” he added, worried that perhaps he hadn’t left a big enough tip at the restaurant or had done something wrong at dinner. His sister was always complaining that he ate too quickly.
“No, no, nothing’s wrong, Jean-Claude. Is it nice and quiet there?”
“Ah oui,” replied the caretaker. Verlaque didn’t know if that was a good or bad sign.
He asked, “I’ve been sitting here, thinking, and I’d just like to ask you again about that night when Étienne died. I know that you were at your sister’s and that the two of you ate together.” Verlaque then paused, not wanting to alarm the caretaker, so he went on, lying, “And then, you watched a movie. You see, I’m pretty sure that a man I met in Cannes, a very rich and evil man, is lying about his alibi, and I’m trying to determine the time of Étienne’s death. This man said that he too had watched The Matrix, it was on the television, wasn’t it?” It was a very bad lie, one that made no sense, but it was the only thing that Verlaque could think of.
“Oh!” Auvieux answered, relieved that it was that man in Cannes who might be in trouble, and not himself. “We ate dinner and then around nine we started the movie. Yes, it was on TF1.”
“So the movie would have ended around eleven, non? What time did you go to bed?”
“Ah! I fell asleep as soon as the movie started! I don’t know why, but I was so tired!”
Verlaque had a lump in his throat, and he closed his eyes. “But, Jean-Claude, you told me all about the movie, remember?”
“Of course! I had seen it before, but I didn’t want to upset Cosette so I didn’t tell her that I had seen it. She has such a bad temper, and she was so excited about watching the movie with me.”
Verlaque continued, but he was also conscious of being very anxious to get out of the apartment. He could not imagine Cosette Auvieux being excited about anything. Why hadn’t Jean-Claude told him that he slept through the film? Did she put him up to it? Or was the caretaker playing dumb? He was a huge man, physically able to kill . . . and he was the first to arrive at the scene of the crime both times. “What time did you wake up? Were you still on the sofa in the morning?”
“Ah! How did you guess? I can
assure you, Monsieur le juge, that I have never slept the entire evening on a sofa before! I don’t know what came over me!” Auvieux didn’t respect lazy people—and those who slept in, and on sofas, were lazy. He was sure that the judge would agree with him.
But the judge didn’t say anything about lazy people sleeping on sofas and instead said, “Thank you so much, Jean-Claude.” Verlaque picked up his car keys and apartment keys and asked one last question, “Jean-Claude, does Cosette know about the papers?”
Auvieux was silent, and then answered, “I told her . . . by mistake. When we were eating the blanquette de veau. Cosette was insulting Monsieur François, saying he was a good-for-nothing, and I told her that we had found the papers together, and that François was going to go to a lawyer on Monday with the papers. He wanted to help me. He was good, not like the other one.”
“Do you mean Étienne?” Verlaque asked, stopping on the stairs.
“It’s nothing! I shouldn’t speak that way of the dead! Good night!” Auvieux abruptly hung up.
Verlaque threw his cell phone into his jacket pocket and grabbed his coat on the way out the door. Auvieux had been drugged—that’s why he fell asleep as soon as the movie began, he thought as he ran down the stairs. He kicked himself for not driving to the château after he spoke with Sylvie and Jean-Marc on the phone. Marine said that she was meeting a man. And Verlaque now remembered that Arthur was away, in California. Was the man Jean-Claude? As soon as he got outside he called Paulik, immediately realizing that Paulik could never make it to Saint-Antonin in less than an hour from his home in Pertuis. As the commissioner’s phone rang Verlaque whispered to himself, “She’s the one. Stop it with all the others. Make up your mind, you fool.”
A groggy voice answered, “Oui?”
“A thousand apologies, Bruno, but could you please call a policeman who’s on duty tonight and have him meet me at the Château Bremont?” asked Verlaque, opening his car door at the same time and throwing himself inside.
Paulik put his head back on the pillow, looked at his bedside clock, and impatiently asked, “Who is this?”
“It’s Verlaque!”
“Oh! Sorry!” Paulik answered, sitting up at once. Verlaque had never called him at home. “I’ll call Flamant right away!”
“Good. I’ll meet him there. Tell him to park his car on the road beside the château. I’ll meet him there. We’ll have to hope that Auvieux left the gates open. I don’t want anyone to know that we are there. I’ll explain later.”
“Entendu!”
Chapter Twenty-five
Marine blinked a few times, trying to adjust her eyes to the attic, with its oversized gilded mirrors, broken tables and chairs, and the stacks of ancient cardboard boxes that looked as thought they could disintegrate at a touch. “Quoi?” Marine asked, when she didn’t see Auvieux, but instead his sister, Cosette.
“What are you doing here?” Cosette Auvieux asked, slurring her words and stumbling a bit, having to reach out to an old coatrack to regain her balance. Marine noticed a half-full bottle and a porcelain teacup sitting on a wooden table next to Mme Auvieux. “The beautiful professor,” she continued, looking at Marine with a clownlike smile.
“Cosette,” Marine said, slowly moving toward the drunken woman and trying to make sense of the situation. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to get these,” Cosette answered, her smile gone.
Marine looked at the bottle, a cheap whiskey, and then saw the stack of papers behind it. Cosette watched Marine and smiled again.
“I know about the papers, Cosette. Would you like me to look at them with you? I know a fair bit about the law. Perhaps I can help,” Marine suggested.
“Bien sûr! I’m sure you’d like to see these papers!”
Marine stepped forward and Cosette yelled, “Stay there!” She tucked the papers against her small chest and scowled. Marine sat down on an old caned chair.
Marine wished that Verlaque or Paulik were with her, or on their way to Saint-Antonin, or somewhere nearby. The only thing she could do was to keep Cosette talking, and drinking. Perhaps if she drank more, she would pass out and Marine could call Verlaque or try to find Jean-Claude. She then realized that her cell phone was in her purse in her car, but the car keys were in her jacket pocket. Marine pointed to the whiskey and asked, “Could I have a drink too?”
“Of course. Excuse my bad manners in not offering you one first.” Cosette reached down into an already open cardboard box and took out another porcelain teacup. She blew into the cup to get rid of some of the dust, and then wiped it on the bottom of her T-shirt. She poured Marine a bit of whiskey and gave it to her. Marine sipped a bit and her eyes watered as the alcohol burned her throat. The good whiskies that Verlaque bought didn’t burn like this.
“Was Étienne reading the papers on Saturday night?” Marine asked.
“Yes, he was . . . but I didn’t know he would be here! I drove as fast as I could from Cotignac, as soon as Jean-Claude told me about finding them. I always knew that we would find proof. Maman never lied.”
“What exactly do the papers say, Cosette?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“No, I’m afraid I can’t,” answered Marine, who suddenly saw the Annunciation’s flying baby in her head. She had no idea why, but she couldn’t get the flying baby out of her mind. “Is it about a baby?” she asked.
“Who told you?” Cosette hissed. Marine said a silent thank-you to the Flemish painter. She went on with her bluff. “Nobody told me, Cosette.”
“I should have known—you were always a Little Miss Know-It-All. So you figured out Maman’s secret . . . that Count Philippe de Bremont was Jean-Claude’s father. And,” she continued, tapping the papers, “Jean-Claude was to split the inheritance three ways, with Étienne and François.”
Marine sat back and then muttered, “My God.” She looked at Cosette, who was swaying back and forth. “And with Étienne and François dead . . . ,” Marine added.
“Étienne got what he deserved! But I certainly didn’t kill François!”
“You pushed Étienne!”
“He had the papers, and he was laughing! He said that he was going to destroy them . . . that nobody would believe me, a poor hairdresser from Cotignac!”
“Étienne wouldn’t have said those things, Cosette.”
“Are you calling me liar?!”
“You can’t push someone out of an open window because he says things you don’t like!”
“That’s not all he said! Some of it I can’t even repeat!” Cosette continued, “He said that François was stupid for wanting to help Jean-Claude and helping those models. He said that if François wasn’t more careful, he would get himself killed. That’s when I started to worry for François. I asked Étienne how he knew all this—and he laughed and said, ‘A friend of mine in Marseille told me.’”
Marine closed her eyes and thought of her mother’s words: “It’s as if one brother received all the good and the other all the bad.” She thought of the broken window and how François had taken the blame for it. Cosette, when they visited her in the Var, had said, “It always happened like that.” Marine, as a teenager, had never been physically attracted to Étienne, but she was—if she was really honest with herself—impressed by his weird hyperenergy, his charm, and his title. The latter two attributes got them free drinks all night long at the disco in Aix.
“How was François helping Jean-Claude?” Marine asked, more interested in Jean-Claude than in any Marseille connection.
“François had been confiding in Jean-Claude, especially after they found the papers together. François had a big plan . . . and with Jean-Claude’s help he could make it all happen.”
“And so you and Étienne fought over the papers?” Marine asked, wanting to understand how Étienne fell.
&nbs
p; Cosette nodded and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “Yes! He kept insulting me, saying dirty things. He was standing right beside the open window, in the moonlight. But even as I was running toward him he wouldn’t shut up. I meant to push him down on the floor, not out the window! He said that my mother was a whore, a cheap maid, and that’s when I ran at him. I screamed when he fell out of the window, and I watched his face as he fell. It was horrible . . . because it looked like he was smiling. I ran downstairs, but I saw that he was dead. There were some papers outside, on the grass, and I picked them up and ran back into the château and cleaned up. I was so upset that I even swept and then wiped my fingerprints off the broom. I then shoved all the papers under one of the floorboards under that old bed. It’s where I used to hide things when I was small. I didn’t want to take them with me—I was so worried that someone would catch me on the way out. I closed up the place and ran to the cabanon. You remember it, non?”
Marine pictured the small, rough-hewn stone cabin. It was at the top of the hill behind the château, about five hundred meters past the small forest. As children Étienne and Marine had sometimes used the cabanon for their war games but were quickly evicted by François and Cosette, who used it for smoking cigarettes and doing who knows what else. Cosette took a drink of whiskey and continued, “François said that he loved me, once when we were in the cabanon. You can’t believe it, can you?”
Marine looked at Cosette, and she remembered how often Cosette had been around François, trailing after him really. No, Marine thought, it was the other way around—François had followed Cosette.
“And then, after my mother died, and I moved to Cotignac to live with my aunt, François said that he would come for me, but he never did. He went to Paris to some second-rate private business school, and later moved to the Côte. And even then, when he was so close to Cotignac, he couldn’t be bothered to call.”
“You parked in the parking lot near the cabanon tonight,” Marine interrupted. There was a foot path from the Bremont cabanon that led to a public hiking trail, which in turn finished at a small parking lot at the foot of mont Sainte-Victoire, and which the Aixois liked to keep secret. She should have told Antoine about it.