Crime Fraiche

by Alexander Campion

  Jacques, Alexandre, and Oncle Aymerie, who had snuck off without anyone noticing, loped up cheerfully. They had clearly put Alexandre’s cane to its intended use.

  “We just had a very fulfilling little walk,” Jacques said. “We saw the prize bull. Alexandre poked him you know where with his stick, and we were told we couldn’t do that.” The three chuckled happily.

  “And then you discovered what else you could do with that stick, I’m sure,” Capucine said.

  Just as Alexandre was about to remonstrate, he saw Momo in the distance, walking with two other North Africans. All three seemed dispirited, kicking pebbles on the path, killing time. Alexandre had met Momo on several occasions and was a great fan of his in the way that oil and vinegar have a profound attraction for each other.

  Alexandre brightened and inhaled deeply, ready to shout out a greeting. “Say!” he started to articulate before the anomaly of the situation struck him. All he got out was the “S—”

  Capucine rejoiced in her reprieve, but her heart went out to Momo. He looked drained and spiritless.

  Oncle Aymerie had obviously scored the lion’s share of the bounty of Alexandre’s walking stick and evidenced a bonhomie exaggerated enough to have qualified him as a stand-in for Maurice Chevalier.

  “Come along, you three,” he said to Capucine, Alexandre, and Jacques. “Time to go home for tea.” He paused and said to Alexandre, “Don’t worry. Tea is just a synecdoche,” struggling valiantly with the final word but getting it right in the end. In a stage aside to Jacques he said, “You have to use words like that with literary types if you want them to understand.” The three men laughed uproariously.

  Capucine’s stupefaction at Alexandre’s growing intimacy with her family did not erase her anxiety at the upcoming explanation to him of exactly how it was that Momo just happened to be strolling along the grounds of the élevage. An explanation that would be all the more tricky when she got to the part about not yet having obtained the examining magistrate’s approval for such an unorthodox move.

  CHAPTER 37

  It was probably due to some subliminal childhood memory ; Capucine had always loathed the façade of Rouen’s cathedral—France’s other Notre Dame. Monet had gotten it right: a prodigiously amorphous pile oozing with formless baubles, as meaningless a shape as one of his haystacks, whose only usefulness had been to reflect the changing colors of the day’s light. The monolith loomed oppressively, casting a chilly shadow over the empty café terrace in the middle of the place de la Calende. Capucine shivered and felt ridiculous.

  Momo and Capucine had agreed to meet at the Brasserie La Flèche at the corner of the square just in front of the cathedral at two thirty in the afternoon. Momo was to take the bus right after lunch on his day off. Both of them had worried that some of his fellow workers might also be on the bus and prove unshakable. Arriving half an hour early and sitting out in the open, she would see him coming and be able to come up with a Plan B if need be. But she hadn’t bargained on the cold and gloom.

  Enough was enough. She had left her Barbour open, as police procedure dictated, giving her free access to her Sig. She zipped it up tightly, snapped the collar shut around her neck, and took another turn with her brightly striped scarf. She was still cold. And just as bored.

  A man arrived with a large, slow-moving basset hound on a leash and sat down three tables away. A waiter came up, a bottle of beer already on a tray, poured two-thirds of it into a glass and the rest into a bowl, which he placed in front of the basset, who lapped it up enthusiastically. It was obviously a daily ritual.

  When there was no beer left, the dog looked up at Capucine, two foaming streams spilling from its jowls. His lower lids fell away from his eyes, incongruously making him appear all knowing and infinitely sad. Capucine was convinced the dog fully understood her predicament. The man stood up, sprinkled a few euro coins on the table, and said, “Salut, Jean,” more or less in the direction of the waiter, who waved lethargically as they walked off.

  Capucine snorted and shook her head. She was overreacting again. It was her need to cover all her bets. The thing that went most against her grain was putting all her chips on a single number. But that was exactly what she’d done. If Momo came up dry, she’d have no case. After all the sound and fury she’d be a laughingstock in her family as well as on the force. And on top of it all, she knew she’d asked too much of Momo. She cringed at the thought of their meeting.

  She followed the man and his dog with her eyes. Just as they were about to reach a cute shop that was both tea salon and secondhand bookstore, preciously called the “Thé Majuscule”—Capital Tea—she saw Momo, who bent down to pet the dog, using the gesture to look around the square. He was in the clear. Now she could get out of this goddamn cold.

  Capucine stood up, folded a five-euro note under a saucer to pay for her tea, and followed Momo into the brasserie. By the time she arrived at their table, Momo already had a double Scotch in front of him. He downed half of it, the single ice cube tinkling in the tall tumbler. She had seen him look happier.

  “Not enjoying country life?” she asked.

  “Sure I am. Tending your smoke- and booze-free garden is definitely the way to go. The hell with sitting in a café, puffing on a clope, sipping a ballon of red, and checking out the waitress’s legs. Oh, pardon, Commissaire. Don’t take that the wrong way, but, jeez, this is some assignment you gave me. I get to share a room with some asshole Arab fundamentalist, so I can’t even think about having a drink or a smoke, and then I get to spend nine hours at hard labor with nothing more in my belly than lamb tagine.” He shook his head in disgust.

  “What kind of work do they have you doing?” Capucine asked.

  “I got a great job. I’m on the kill floor. It’s fun stuff. What do I do? I torture cows. Remember how you used to get all pissed off about the way they do interrogations at the Quai? Well, you’d really love this.” He beckoned the waiter over and pointed at his empty glass to ask for another. Once Capucine had given her order and the waiter had left, Momo resumed his litany of complaints.

  “What happens is that the steers are pushed down this chute, see? And then some guy with this pneumatic gizmo pops them on the head so they’re knocked out. I did that for a week. That part’s okay. But then I tried too hard and got promoted. I even got a raise.” Momo snorted. “After they’re so-called knocked out, they’re chained upside down to this rail that slides them into the next room, where someone slits their throats and skins them. That guy would be me.”

  “Oh, Momo, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for the fucking steers.” He signaled the waiter for a third Scotch.

  “So these un-knocked-out steers really jerk around on the chain when you start to skin them. Some of them even start howling.” He paused and smiled slightly. By the third Scotch the alcohol was finally beginning to take effect. “What I do is, when no one is looking, I give the dumbass steer a good hard right hook to the back of the head. If you do it just right, you can hear the neck snap. What’s for lunch?” He burst into ironic laughter.

  “No steak?” Capucine asked with a smile.

  “No, and anything that looks like a tagine or contains lamb is even worse. And if you even say ‘mint tea,’ I’m outta here.”

  Capucine picked up the menu. “There’s canard à la Rouennaise. It’s the specialty in Rouen. I’m not sure Alexandre would tell us this is the best place to have it, but—”

  “Duck? Great. Go for it.”

  “Your cover is secure, right?”

  “Yeah, bulletproof. But it wasn’t easy. I don’t know shit about farmwork, so I had to come on even dumber than usual. That worked out pretty well. They figured out I was a retard but real good at using my muscles. Just like at the police.” Momo laughed and then looked around to make sure he hadn’t been overheard. “At first they’d kid me because I didn’t have calloused palms and I was the only guy wearing work gloves. But I don’t have that
problem anymore.” He lifted both his hands and held them out palm first in the classic gesture of surrender. “See?” he said, proudly showing off his brand-new orange calluses. “Of course, I still don’t know shit about cattle.”

  “So they torture the steers. That’s it?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Commissaire. It turns out that’s the way steers are always killed. In fact, it seems these guys are better than most. And before they get to my area, the goddamn things are treated like those white, fluffy dogs in the Sixteenth Arrondissement.”

  The two plates of duck arrived along with a bottle of Volnay that Capucine had selected. Automatically, the waiter poured an inch into Momo’s glass for him to taste. Irritated, he pushed the glass toward Capucine and told the waiter to bring him a fourth Scotch. Capucine had never seen Momo in such a bad mood.

  “Did you find out anything else?”

  “Nothing major. The joint’s sagging, but it’s not in free fall or anything like that,” Momo said, poking his duck aggressively with his fork.

  “Sagging?”

  “For one, they can treat those cows like they were living in some Passy apartment all they want, but the fuckers aren’t growing the way they used to. For two, nobody’s really driving the bus anymore.” Momo decided the duck was edible and attacked it with gusto.

  Capucine let him chew noisily until she could stand it no more.

  “Come on, Momo, out with it!”

  “All right,” he said, his mouth full. “That guy that died, Philippe Gerlier, he was so good, they call him Saint Philippe. According to everyone, he was the one running the place. Your pal Vienneau just did a walk around every now and then, like he did with you guys the other day, but he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

  “Apparently this Gerlier really was a saint. He worked his ass off day in and day out, except when he was visiting his poor mama, who is dying of Alzheimer’s in some clinic in the Midwest of the United States. The guy was half American, but he was brought up in France by his French father after his American wife left him.”

  “I thought Vienneau took over the management after Gerlier died.”

  “Not that I can see. The guy trying to run the place is this Pierre Martel, one of the foremen. The problem is that he doesn’t really know what to do, either. All he does is yell and bully the hands.”

  Capucine looked at Momo, waiting for more.

  He took a mammoth bite of the duck and swallowed a third of his whiskey. “The big problem is that the cattle aren’t growing fast enough. They post the weekly stats in the abattoir, and you can see that they are killing more and more head to make the weekly weight.”

  “Does anyone know why?”

  “Sure. It’s because Saint Philippe isn’t there to bless the steers anymore.” Momo laughed and downed the Scotch, signaling the waiter for another one with his free hand.

  “No one has a clue. The place is like a Chinese fire drill. Martel makes everyone run around in circles doing this and doing that. One day they change the feed mix. The next day they dump a new vitamin supplement into the feed. The day after that they change the antibiotics. Then they stop it all and run all the cattle down the chute to get injected with a new kind of vitamin. Nothing works. They gotta find another saint.” Momo laughed happily. The Scotch had finally done its work.

  “That roast you had that Sunday—”

  “How do you know about that?” Capucine asked in amazement.

  “Man, we know everything that goes on in the big house, right down to the last fart. Anyway, that particular hunk of meat was from the last batch before cattle started to pine away for their saint. The last of the good stuff.”

  The duck reduced to a skeleton, Momo leaned back in his chair with his latest drink. “So what do you want me to do now, Commissaire?”

  “You need to get into wherever it is they keep the records. Is there some sort of accounting office?”

  “There’s an accounting department with three employees. Most of the guys have found an excuse to go in at one point or another. One of the accountants is pretty hot. They lock the office doors at night, but it’s not a dead bolt or anything, so a plastic shim will get you in with no trouble. What am I looking for?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary. If you find something interesting, let me know and we’ll figure out what to do next.”

  Momo nodded.

  “Listen. You’re being careful about your cover, right?”

  “Yeah, Commissaire, I’m just a big dumb guy who don’t know from nuttin’. Speakin’ of which, I should be getting back. Some of the guys are going into town for dinner tonight. There’s a crappy Maghrebian café they go to, and I wouldn’t want to miss out on some more couscous. Also, I gotta buy some hooch to take back.”

  “Momo, you left your police card at home like I told you? You’re sure about that?”

  “Calm down, Commissaire. I’m not some kid just out of the academy. It’s my fucking neck on the line. I know what I’m doing.” Capucine noticed Momo tightening slightly, which she took as a sign of irritation. If she had been a bit more observant, she might have seen that he was squeezing his heels together to reassure himself that the Smith and Wesson was still tightly strapped to his left ankle.

  CHAPTER 38

  “Where the hell are you?” the harsh voice asked threateningly. Capucine smiled serenely and admired Gauvin’s latest improvement to her cloakroom refuge, a chipped onyx pen stand—the old kind that threatened to poke you in the eye if you bent over too quickly—which he must have found in the attic and garnished with two cheap Bic ballpoint pens, one red and the other black.

  Contrôleur Général Guy Saccard had been Capucine’s mentor ever since they had met when he was a guest lecturer at the commissaire’s course at the police training school. Despite his august rank—he was head of half of the Paris Police Judiciaire and her boss’s boss—he enjoyed teasing her with his bluster. Capucine assumed he was just checking up on her well-being, something he did frequently.

  “A place called Saint-Nicolas, sir. It’s in Normandy.”

  “Château de Maulévrier in Saint-Nicolas-de-Bliquetuit? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” She could hear papers being rustled angrily.

  There was something unusual in his tone. Capucine sensed it would be unwise to let herself be tempted by the irony of his rhetorical question.

  “What the hell are you doing down there?”

  “I was on vacation when a case came up. The DCPJ ordered me to look into it part-time.”

  “They ordered you, did they? You had nothing to do with it, of course.” He paused. Capucine could imagine him frowning and shaking his head. “And you really thought that just by pulling a few of your little strings, the DCPJ would assign you to a case and I’d never hear about it. You must have known that they’d need my approval. Why didn’t you just ask me in the first place?”

  “Because I thought you’d turn me down, sir,” Capucine said meekly.

  “And you thank me for my approval by hiding in a closet and ignoring your commissariat while all hell breaks loose? Is that how you show your appreciation?”

  Capucine searched frantically for hidden cameras. How could he possibly know? She tried hard to collect herself. “What sort of hell is breaking loose, sir?”

  “Have you read the papers this morning, or doesn’t the press make it all the way down to Saint-Nicolas-de”—he paused for effect—“Bliquetuit?” He pronounced the word slowly and sarcastically. “Blee . . . kay . . . twee.” This was more than bluster; he really did sound furious.

  “Sir, they come in the afternoon, around three or four.”

  “Ah, yes, just in time for the apéro. A little white Lillet, nicely chilled? Is that what you drink down there? How nice. You must invite me sometime. I’m sure I’d find château life very relaxing after dealing with all the crap that oozes out of your sector.”

  “Sir, what are you trying to tell me?”

  “Ah ha, I thought
that would spark your interest. What’s going to spoil the taste of your Lillet today is that Le Figaro is running a profile piece on your Belle au Marché. There’s a map of where all the victims were located, with little pictures of them. A detailed description of her MO. Also a detailed list of what she’s taken. And a physical description of her—entirely fantasized by some reporter, by the way. Like it so far?”

  Capucine was stunned. “A couple of reporters did come by the commissariat a few weeks ago, but I thought they’d forgotten all about the case.”

  “And no doubt they would have if your Belle had stuck to run-of-the-mill bourgeois fat cats. She could even have thrown in the composer—who the hell knows who Hubert Lafontaine is? But when you start dicking around with movie stars, then you’re going to get the press in big-time. Still with me, Commissaire?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, here’s the fun part. In this piece, your Belle is portrayed as a modern Arsène Lupin, gentleman burglar. But in this version, Lupin just happens to be a female wearing a thirty-nine D bra and black stockings with a garter belt.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “And, of course, there has to be a dumb cop you play for laughs. Just like Inspecteur Ganimard in Leblanc’s novels, but this time around the dumb cop is called Commissaire Le Tellier.”

  Capucine knew the world of journalism well enough to be sure this was exactly the way the story would have been written.

  “Now, Capucine,” he said, alarming her with the use of her first name. “Here’s the punch line. This pisses me off for two reasons. The first is that it just so happens I believe in your career, but if the press succeeds in making you look like a fool, your credibility on the street—and on the force—is going to go right down the crapper. And that’s going to make it a whole lot harder for you to get your job done. And the other is that it’s not just your cred. The whole of the PJ is going to look like assholes, and that makes the force a little bit less effective.”