Death of a Chef

by Alexander Campion

  A man across from him, who had been given the same dish, said, “Absolutely. It would have been delicate enough even for Jean-Louis Brault.”

  At the table there was a silence as shocked as if someone had passed wind loudly. Brault’s suicide-murder had unquestionably been placed on the index of the culinary world.

  Mercifully, there was a buzz when the multi-starred restaurateur appeared to make his lap around the tables, accompanied by the executive chef of the restaurant, a fresh-faced young man still in his twenties, wearing a highly starched chef’s outfit with an immaculate white kerchief knotted around his neck. Significantly, the restaurateur wore a business suit, making it clear that, while the cooking was the domain of the executive chef, his was the genius of creation.

  As hands were shaken and backs patted, the elderly woman next to Capucine leaned over and said in a loud aside, “How young they are nowadays. I can remember when chefs had to be in their sixties and have enormous bellies.”

  Another unfortunate comment. The table was cued to recall that Jean-Louis Brault had been the second youngest chef in France to receive a third star.

  With intense fervor the diners at the table applied themselves to their dishes.

  A man lurched out from behind the bar screen, squinting angrily into the room with deep-sunk, cadaverous eyes over frameless half-glasses. Visibly drunk, he careened into a table, coming to rest by supporting himself with both hands on the back of a diner’s chair. The room iced in embarrassed silence.

  “Mille fois pardon, Monsieur Ducon. A thousand apologies, Mister Asshole,” the drunk sneered when the man turned angrily.

  “Lucien Folon,” Alexandre whispered to Capucine, who had never met him and had only had a glimpse of his profile as he scuttled away from Brault’s funeral mass.

  Hands still on the back of the chair, head jerking, Folon laboriously examined the room until he singled out Alexandre.

  “Ah, voilà le petit bougre. There’s the little bugger,” Folon said in a loud voice and zigzagged over to Alexandre’s table.

  “Listen up, connard—you complete asshole,” he said, latching on to the back of Alexandre’s chair like an exhausted swimmer grabbing the edge of the pool. “Kritikós, my fucking ass. Not only are you a goddamn snob who doesn’t know the first thing about cuisine, but you’re also illiterate.”

  He rattled Alexandre’s chair violently.

  “You write another word about me or that no-talent, limp-dicked Brault and you’re going to see what you’re going to see!” Folon shouted, reeling and waving his fist in the air.

  A Junoesque redhead across the table, the wife of the food critic of Le Parisien, said, “That’s quite enough, Lucien. High time for you to go home and sleep it off. I won’t have you say another word about poor Jean-Louis. And for what it’s worth, if Jean-Louis Brault had ever looked my way, I would have jumped right into his bed. But, sadly, he never did.” Her husband rubbed her back affectionately.

  The little color left drained from Folon’s face. Ashen, he renewed his grip on the back of Alexandre’s chair with both hands, breathing shallowly, spitting in the effort to make a spiteful retort.

  “The elderly woman next to Capucine said, “Yes, little man, Agnès is perfectly right. If I were ten year younger—goodness, forget about that—if he were still alive, I’d be delighted to slip under the eiderdown with him anytime he wanted. Now, go crawl back under your rock, you repulsive little insect.”

  Fanned by rage, the dim coals in the recesses of Folon’s eyes glowed dark red in their orbits. His prissy dark lips opened and twisted downward into a scowl, revealing sharp, rodent-like incisors. He lifted his arm high and open-handed, intending to slap the elderly woman.

  Capucine rose and, with a fluid motion, twisted Folon’s arm behind him in a policeman’s lock. While he snarled and growled, another diner grabbed Folon’s other arm, and the two of them marched him to the door. Capucine let the man put the sole of his shoe to Folon’s posterior and propel him violently into the street. Folon bounced off a parked car, regained his balance, and shambled off.

  When she returned to the table, the elderly woman said to Capucine, “Goodness, my dear, you didn’t need to do that. I was all set to knee him in the balls.”

  The table dissolved in laughter.

  CHAPTER 13

  It had been a disappointing meeting. None of the three brigadiers had anything that even looked like an idea. The case seemed completely stalled. Capucine got up from her desk and paced the room. After a lap she stopped in the far corner.

  “We need to focus on Lucien Folon,” she said.

  “The critic guy?” Isabelle asked.

  “You think he might have rubbed Brault out because he didn’t like his cooking?” David asked. “Now, that really would have been a scathing review.” He twirled a silky ginger lock around his finger. Isabelle shot him a dark look. Momo uncoiled his frown a notch, his version of a smile.

  “I met him for the first time yesterday. It was an impressive display. He’s definitely strung out about something. I want to find out what. He also has quite a violent streak. Isabelle, can you run him down on the screen for me?”

  Two hours later, a very upbeat Isabelle returned, trailing the other two brigadiers.

  “Commissaire,” Isabelle said, “you’re a genius. Get this. Folon and Brault come from the same town, and they were born in the same year. They must go way back together.”

  Capucine waved the brigadiers into chairs.

  “Start at the beginning,” Capucine said to Isabelle.

  “Like I said, Folon’s thirty-three, same age as Brault. Both were born and grew up in La Cadière-d’Azur, in the département of the Var. Folon’s story is straight out of the good old South. His parents ran the village bakery. They still do.” Isabelle paused to give the next section its proper emphasis.

  “His mother got married when she was sixteen. On her birthday. She had a child four months after the wedding. Nice, huh? She married the baker’s son. Our records show she drew a salary at the bakery from her fifteenth birthday, the earliest she could legally go on the payroll. My guess is that she worked there for years, the baker’s boy knocked her up, and her family made her marry him as soon as she could, which was on her sixteenth birthday. Nice birthday present.” Isabelle glowered.

  “Was that child our man Folon?” Capucine asked.

  “No. That was a daughter, Françoise. Lucien was born four years later. He graduated from the village’s primary school and the lycée and was one of the only two students in his class to pass the bac.” Isabelle snorted at the primitiveness of a small southern village where virtually no one bothered with the baccalaureate certificate, because they had no interest in going to university.

  Momo’s frown deepened three notches. He didn’t have his bac, either.

  “Folon shows up next in Marseilles, where he spends six years getting a license and a masters in journalism. Then he goes to work in the Marseilles office of the Agence France-Presse. After a few months they send him to the U.S. to work in their office in New York as a junior photo editor. He quits the AFP after six months but doesn’t set foot in France for a year and a half. We don’t know what he was doing, because he didn’t file a French tax return, legal enough if he wasn’t earning money in France. Next, he comes back to Marseilles and gets a job as a fashion reporter for Le Dauphiné Libéré—”

  “Fashion reporter?” David asked. “How did he get into food criticism?”

  “I’m getting to that, asshole. If you just sat there with your trap shut, like you’re supposed to, you’d find out.” Isabelle raised her eyebrows and shook her head in exasperation. “Next, he moves to Paris and gets a job with Le Parisien, writing for the women’s page. I guess that would have been recipes, fashion, and all that crap, right? He does that for two years.”

  Isabelle made a sarcastic moue at David. “Here you go, num nuts. He joins Le Figaro on the staff of the restaurant page. He must have started at t
he bottom of the heap, because from his tax returns he was making peanuts. Nowadays he’s raking it in, though. He gets a good salary from the paper, has royalties coming in from three books, and does stuff on TV two or three times a month. That’s it.”

  “Good work,” Capucine said.

  “No. It’s thin. I don’t know anything about his life. We’d know if he’d ever been married, which he hasn’t. I had a quick look at his credit card records, and you don’t see him eating out all that much, but I’m guessing he gets comped wherever he goes.”

  Capucine laughed. “He definitely eats for free in the upmarket places, and I doubt he often gets a yen for a Royal Cheese at McDonald’s.”

  “So what do we do now, Commissaire? I can go out with the guys and start doing interviews and take his life apart.”

  Capucine stared at Isabelle, unseeing, for a few beats.

  “No,” she said finally. “We need to start at the beginning, in La Cadière. That’s where he knew Brault. Were they classmates?”

  “Bound to have been,” Isabelle said. “They’re the same age, and the village only has one primary school and one lycée.”

  “We need to dig deep into La Cadière. There may be something to find, but it’s not going to be easy. They’re notoriously closemouthed about their private lives in the Midi.” Capucine resumed her pacing, thinking.

  She stopped behind David’s chair and put her hands on his shoulders. “You’re from down there, aren’t you?”

  “Not as far as those guys are concerned, I’m not. I’m from Provence, almost on the Italian border. I grew up in a village east of Cannes, high up in the hills. In the Var they think that’s a different country.”

  “But you know how to play boules and drink pastis, right?” Momo asked.

  “Wait just a minute!” Isabelle said. “David’s not going anywhere. He’s an inch away from making an arrest on that child pornography case. He’s got the perp tagged and is just putting the finishing touches on the magistrate’s file. But the magistrate’s being a real pain and keeps wanting more stuff.”

  Capucine ignored her. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to send David down to La Cadière under cover so he can soak the place up. We’ll have to cook up a good story for him.” She paused, contemplating David.

  “David, do you think you can pull off being a journalist? No, even better . . . how about a writer doing a biography of Chef Brault? That would be perfect. It would be entirely natural for you to be finding out about Brault’s childhood pals.”

  David’s eyes began to light up.

  “Hang on just a minute, Commissaire. David can’t go anywhere until he wraps up his case. Let’s be clear about that,” Isabelle said.

  “How long is that going to take, David?” Capucine asked.

  “I don’t know. End of the week, maybe.” David said absently, lost in thought. “See, the way I’ll do it is lug a laptop everywhere and take real notes for the book. People will read over my shoulder and see that I’m actually working on something. This is going to be great. I’d get to run expenses and ply people with pastis, right?”

  “Everybody’s best friend, the boozy writer,” Momo said.

  Isabelle sat rigidly in her chair, livid.

  “The tricky question is what to wear. I wouldn’t want to be the scruffy author with a five-day stubble. That just isn’t me. What I might do is a sort of Gallic Tom Wolfe look. White is particularly suited to the Midi and—”

  “Let’s get serious, Commissaire,” Isabelle interrupted. “I really need David here until he buttons up his arrest. We just can’t let him drop that.”

  “Isabelle, calm down. He’ll make his arrest.”

  David paid no attention to this exchange. “Commissaire,” he said. “This is going to be great. I’m going to take myself to one of those old Pagnol movies tonight to start getting into the role. Maybe I should get a new laptop. That could really set off my imag—”

  “All right, David, plan on taking the TGV to Marseilles Saturday morning and renting a car at the station. But that’s on the assumption that the magistrate is happy and he lets you make an arrest before the end of the week.”

  David nodded, only half listening. “No prob. I can do that avec les doigts dans le nez—with my fingers up my nose,” he said in the broad, rolling accent of the Midi.

  CHAPTER 14

  Capucine picked up the ringing phone. “Pardon, Commissaire,” the brigadier at the front desk said abruptly and then paused awkwardly.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a person on the line for you who claims to be an officer of police, but I’m not sure if he is. He doesn’t sound like one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He says he’s a commissaire-priseur. Do we have those on the force?”

  Capucine laughed. “He’s not a flic. He’s a licensed auctioneer. Put him on.”

  “Commissaire, this is Bertrand de Bertignac. I’m a commissaire-priseur at the Hôtel Drouot. I think I have some information that might have something to do with one of your cases.”

  “Which case?”

  “Chef Brault’s murder. I could tell you about it over the phone, but since it involves a physical object, it might make more sense for you to come down here and let me show you what I’ve come across.”

  Two hours later a frustrated Capucine wandered up and down the threadbare carpeting of the halls of the Hôtel Drouot, looking in vain for a receptionist or wall panel that might indicate the location of Bertignac’s office. Rounding a corner, she came across Théophile, Cécile’s husband, avidly making notes in an auction catalog, brows knit in concentration. With a start, he jerked up at Capucine’s approach.

  “Capucine! What a surprise. You’re the last person I’d expect to see at a wine auction.” They exchanged air kisses.

  “I’m looking for a commissaire-priseur by the name of Bertignac. Is there a list somewhere that tells you which office he’s in?”

  “Bertignac? He’s holding the auction I’m bidding on. Right in there.” Théophile pointed at a set of oversized double doors across the hall. “Actually, I should be getting back in. I bought two lots early on, but the one I really want will be coming up in ten minutes or so. The auction’s nearly over. Bertignac will be out in about twenty minutes.”

  “Take me with you. I want to see this Bertignac à l’œuvre .”

  “Absolutely. But we need to get a move on.” Hard in the grips of acquisition lust, he almost pushed Capucine toward the door.

  “Let me tell you what we’re after.” He squeezed Capucine’s upper arm excitedly. “Of course, you know that nineteen eighty-four was the worst millésime of the century, even worse than nineteen forty-four. Almost none of the Bordeaux châteaux bottled that year. One of the few exceptions was Pétrus. A whole case of it’s for sale. I’m betting that even in an execrable year, France’s best wine is still going to be remarkable. And with any luck, it will go for a song.” He beamed and quickened his pace.

  The auction room was long, narrow, low-ceilinged; the walls were covered with panels of crimson cloth. Théophile, normally diffident to the point of shyness, marched purposefully up to the front, with Capucine in his wake. In the third row, two seats in from the aisle, a vacant seat had been reserved with a sale catalog. The man sitting next to it stood up and eased his way out.

  “I see you’ve found a friend,” he whispered to Théophile. “She can have my seat. I’m quitting for the day. I lost the Yquem. There are some lunatics in the back who are offering absurd prices, and there is a phone bidder who is a complete loose cannon. I’m wasting my time. I just stayed to hold your seat. I’m going to spend the rest of the afternoon in a café, in the company of sane people. Good luck.”

  Théophile and Capucine dropped into the two seats. From behind a podium a tall, spare man with thin hair and aristocratic features peered out intently into the room over tortoiseshell half-glasses, pointing at people with a gold pen, reiterating the
ir bids in a loud voice. At a low table next to him two dark-suited young men and a pretty girl in a blue dress sat with telephones to their ears, raising their hands every now and then to place a bid. On the far side of the podium a man in a black jacket with shiny metal buttons and a crimson collar held the corners of a wooden case of wine, his hands in immaculate white gloves.

  “The Savoyards,” Théophile murmured. “They have a monopoly on moving and showing the pieces at Drouot.”

  At the podium the pace intensified. All the bidders seemed to have dropped out except a single individual in the back of the room and another on the telephone. Bertignac’s head swiveled back and forth as if he were at a tennis match.

  “Neuf,” Bertignac said, pointing his pen at the back of the room.

  “Nine thousand euros for a single case of wine!” Capucine exclaimed.

  “Chut,” Théophile hissed, rapt. He dropped his catalog on the floor, bent down, and used the gesture to attempt to see the bidder in the back. The young woman at the telephone table raised a well-manicured index finger.

  “Nine and a half,” Bertignac announced, then, without pause, pointed his pen at the rear of the room. “Ten!”

  “It’s an American,” Théophile snorted, sitting back in his chair. “I’ve seen him at work. He’s dangerous. He must be made of money.” Théophile was pink with excitement.

  Bertignac scanned the room over his glasses as avidly as a cormorant seeking out a fish. There was a long moment of silence.

  He tapped the podium three times with his pen and stabbed it at the back of the room. “Adjugé. Sold.”

  The room deflated with a collective sigh, and broke out in muted conversations.

  Three more lots went by. After each one Théophile’s pinkness intensified. The white-gloved Savoyard placed a new case on the table as gently as if it were a newborn baby.

  “Doucement. Carefully,” Théophile muttered.

  “Mesdames et messieurs, this is an exceptional lot,” Bertignac announced. “The only nineteen eighty-four Bordeaux cru worth drinking. I’ve never tasted it myself, but since it’s from the glorious Château Pétrus, it’s bound to be highly interesting. Can I hear two and a half?”