Champagne: The Farewell

by Janet Hubbard

  “You’re fortunate to have a Bonnard drawing,” Olivier said in English, walking over to have a closer look.

  “It was given to me by a friend years ago,” Geneviève said. Max wondered if it came from Philippe Douvier. “It’s nice to have someone come in who appreciates art.”

  “I’ve attempted a few paintings of my own.”

  The guy is a Renaissance man, Max thought. And what I find intimidating is an intellectual who flies planes and paints and goes after politicians.

  “I saw your parents’ Paris apartment featured in Maison Française,” Geneviève said. “The Renoir on their wall is magnificent. Few know that he spent much of his young adult life in the Champagne region.”

  “You seem to have a knowledge of, and a love for, our commune,” he said. “I admired you for defending it at dinner the other night.”

  “Oh, that,” she said. “I didn’t intend to stir up a hornet’s nest.”

  Oh, but you did, thought Max.

  “I assumed from your passionate defense of the region that you must have come from there. I was in agreement with everything you said, by the way.”

  I know this tactic, Olivier Chaumont, Max thought. You have them thinking you’re on their side, and build them up until they’re saying things they never intended to let slip.

  “I was really referring to all of France, all the places where the French are allowing foreigners to buy them out. Really, how many champagne companies are owned by original families anymore? Which reminds me….I’m being a bad hostess.”

  She walked over to a table upon which sat a crystal ice bucket containing a bottle of champagne. Max felt her mind wandering back to the cold ice bucket she had discovered soon after Léa had been found dead. She made a mental list of who had been in the vicinity—Antoine, Mimi, Ted, Hans, and maybe Jacques.

  Geneviève handed Max a glass of champagne. “You prefer the l’Etoile?” Olivier asked, referring to the signature champagne of de Saint-Pern.

  “To the Marceau’s Hortense? I read Ted’s blog and think he’s on the mark. He likes the Hortense, which is dominated by the pinot noir grapes. Marc thinks de Saint-Pern should make a more robust champagne than the l’Etoile, and so he has already started experimenting.”

  “Is he working with their chef de cave, Monsieur Martin?”

  “No, they don’t get along very well. Monsieur Martin has been riding on the wave of success created by the l’Etoile for a long time, and doesn’t want any interference. I’m maybe speaking out of turn, but he should be thoroughly questioned about some of his shady business moves. Marc said that Léa knew he was in bed with Monsieur Dupuis.”

  “I appreciate the information. It brings up my reason for being here. I know you gave a statement to the police, but I want to be a bit more thorough.” She eyed him warily, and told him to continue. “I’m intrigued by your relationship with Monsieur Ted Clay.”

  “We became lovers when the man I was with and I separated briefly and remained friends. As for my son’s wedding night, I was on an anti-anxiety medication at the wedding and after toasting with the champagne, I felt too dizzy to walk home alone. Ted was gracious enough to volunteer to escort me.”

  “I thought Marc implored him to walk you home.”

  “Oh, what difference does it make?”

  “Do you recall the time?”

  “No.”

  “Ted stayed longer than he intended at the inn because you needed help getting undressed.”

  She gave Olivier a surprised look. “Is that what he said? Actually, he left so fast he forgot his jacket. I have it here.”

  Hank was right, Max thought. She’s going to get revenge for any rejection she may have experienced.

  “Ted told you about the baby on your drive out to Champagne.”

  She answered in a whisper, and Max recalled how she had placed her hand on Olivier’s arm when they conversed at the wedding dinner. “Ted confided in me that he was unhappy about the baby and he was upset that Léa wasn’t going to list a father on the birth certificate. If you ask me, she had no intention of marrying him. At the same time, she was insisting that they move to California. They’d been arguing about it for days. He had also run out of the money Léa had lent him.”

  Lies and more lies! The words screamed inside Max’s head. Yet the longer she listened the more she began to wonder if there was a semblance of truth running through Geneviève’s story. Guilt took over for allowing a doubt to arise.

  Geneviève took the bottle out of the bucket and started to refill Olivier’s glass but he declined. Max held her glass up for more, and watched Geneviève pour. She seemed to struggle with the weight of the bottle. Max felt like suggesting that she invest in weights. The bucket of ice and champagne near the murder scene surfaced in her mind, and then disappeared.

  “May I please use les toilettes?” she asked. Geneviève got up and led the way down the hall and pointed to a door.

  “May I ask why you’re here?” Geneviève asked. “Marc said you’re a detective of some kind?”

  “That’s my job in New York. But I’m not on this case.”

  “But you’re friends with Ted.”

  Forget prudence and patience, Max thought. She hissed, “I don’t know how you could think he’d kill anyone.”

  “He tried to strangle me once, Max. He’d had a lot to drink, and he flew into a rage. And it wasn’t over anything big. Ask him. Marc was there and can also verify this.”

  She recalled Ted getting into a brawl once on Ninth Avenue after drinking too much in a bar, but it hadn’t left a big impression. His father, she knew, had beaten Ted and his two brothers, but he had only brought it up a couple of times in all the years they had known each other. But there it was: another second of doubt. Geneviève was Ted’s only alibi, and now Max sensed Ted’s chances of remaining above suspicion dissolving in front of her eyes.

  Geneviève’s stilettos striking on marble floor echoed until she was out of sight. Max waited until she heard her telling Olivier the same story about Ted attacking her, then dashed down the hall, and opened one of the closed doors and peered in. It had to be Geneviève’s bedroom. It was all cool elegance, with a monochrome background. There were a few colorful accents like a red rose in a silver vase, and a red hat perched jauntily on a partition. Max hated it.

  She stepped across quickly to look at the framed photographs that were hung in orderly fashion on the wall facing her bed. They were of Geneviève at a party, Geneviève announcing a new line of clothing, Geneviève on holiday holding the hand of a little boy of around seven. She exited Geneviève’s room and went quietly to the next room, where the door was open. It was still decorated as Marc must have had it when he was growing up. Six airplane models covered a table pushed against the wall facing her. So another man with a passion for flying, she thought, recalling Olivier’s excitement when he was in Hans’ plane. Max leaned in closer to see the snapshot of Marc, Léa, and Chloé standing arm in arm in front of the imposing structure of the de Saint-Pern Champagne Company. She moved over to the desk, and aside from the book The Little Prince propped against the lamp, nothing was there except a receipt for the clothes Marc had rented for the wedding, with a note attached about the shoe exchanges.

  Max re-entered the salon in time to hear Geneviève say to Olivier in a teasing voice, “If you keep this up, I’m going to call my lawyer. The answer is yes, we did have a mother-son argument, and if I yelled ‘You’ll end up with nothing,’ then I’ll have to wrack my brain to recall what the subject was. I think I was referring to his future inheritance from me, as I am in a terrible situation financially, and I had asked him to help me.”

  “He’s only just started working. Is he able to do that?”

  “He will eventually.”

  Olivier switched to French, speaking with compassion
, “That must be difficult. You don’t have…other assets?”

  Geneviève’s face grew bitter. “I am…was…the mistress to a very important person in Paris. Six months ago he abandoned me for reasons that I won’t go into. I’m not ready to reveal his name just yet, but I could ruin him publicly. I gave him nine years, the last of my youth.”

  I know your dirty little secret, Max thought.

  Max had never met her uncle, but he had been awful to her mother, encouraging his wife to never speak to her sister for making the choice she did. Geneviève’s face hardened as she spoke and Max thought hers had not been a well-lived life, even with all the symbols of wealth surrounding her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Max pulled out her journal and wrote: Another question for future therapist: how do I avoid becoming a bitter and hostile woman at fifty?

  “What’s that?” Olivier asked. They were on their way to his apartment.

  “I’ve always kept a journal. And detectives in New York carry some form of notebook. I brought this one to write about my trip, but it’s also my homicide book. I’m just about to write about Geneviève.”

  “What’s your impression about her character?”

  “She’s a lying bitch, and my hunch is she’s not one bit sorry Léa is dead. You didn’t believe any of that crap about Ted trying to strangle her, I hope.” He thought he might be catching a glimpse of Max in detective mode, and it wasn’t attractive in the least.

  Max’s rant continued, “My father was right. Geneviève is a woman scorned. Ted wouldn’t let her seduce him and she’s gonna make him pay. Did you believe her?”

  “I didn’t believe or disbelieve. I listen to all the stories and then I start making up my mind. Not until.”

  “She’s not who she says she is. I’d bet my toy poodle on that. It’s just a feeling I have about her. Her apartment, her life, none of it seems authentic to me.”

  “She was a single mother when it was extremely difficult to raise a child and work. You have to admit that there are some things to admire.”

  “She was a mistress. What’s so hard about that? Other than the fact that you owe the man your soul. And your body. Pretty minor.”

  He felt his face flush. “Judgments aren’t as harsh here about those things.”

  “Publicly they’re not. But how do you think his wife feels?”

  “When a woman like Geneviève is supported by her lover, the wife is usually aware. These people would prefer to keep the family together than divorce, and so an arrangement is made.”

  “Which makes me think of Marc. I wonder how he felt about it.”

  Olivier shrugged. “He seems to be well-adjusted. A little arrogant, perhaps. Children accept more than we give them credit for.”

  “I hope he doesn’t lie like his mother.”

  “Your strong reaction may mean that she was perhaps a little convincing.”

  “Maybe. It’s an intimate murder. I much prefer street crime.”

  “I don’t know anything about that, but I see your point. Here we are with no murder weapon, no clues, and too many suspects. Probably in New York you would have the case sewn up.”

  “God, no. We go out of our minds with frustration over wrong turns and false leads. We work as a team though, and it expedites things.”

  “For example?”

  “Jacques.”

  “Jacques?” He could see her struggling as to whether or not to tell him about his friend.

  “This is in strict confidence. I’m sure you know that he and Léa had an affair five years ago after her husband was killed.”

  Olivier had heard the rumor but had thought it just that.

  “When I went to tell him that Léa had been murdered, it was as if he already knew.”

  “I saw his shutters open and thought it odd.”

  “He said he had heard her shout arrête! and thought she and Ted were arguing, but he was so furious with her about the baby, and her selling out, that he poured another brandy instead of going to her assistance. Again, though he is implicating Ted, when it’s quite possible that Jacques could have killed her.”

  Now Olivier felt reactive. “Motive?”

  “The old saw. Unrequited love.”

  Mon dieu, he thought. She’s an impossible romantic. She exudes compassion around Antoine, and practically accuses Jacques. He would have to warn Jacques away from confiding in her. He had barely gotten started with interviews and she was going from person to person and collecting secrets. He wanted to yell at her that she was taking over his job, but knew that wasn’t it at all. He hated hearing about Jacques and Léa from her. He would never say it, but he was disappointed in Jacques, who had been a strong role model for him. Unrequited love! It sounded absurd!

  He maneuvered his car into a parking space and led Max through narrow streets where she stopped in front of shop windows, exclaiming, unaware that he was quite unhappy.

  “You don’t agree with me about Jacques?” she asked.

  “Non.”

  “It’s all supposition,” she said. “This is what I mean about teamwork. We hash it all out, everything on our minds, and sometimes a solution pops up. I don’t deep down believe he did it.”

  The thought of conducting an investigation in this manner was anathema to Olivier. Much too touchy-feely.

  The steep climb didn’t seem to affect her in the least. They came to a three-story, fourteenth century building, and he tapped a code into a box on a wall outside the wrought iron door. They stepped into a spacious courtyard where vivid flowers spilled over from huge urns. The concierge, one of a rare breed these days, stuck her head out and waved to Olivier, who continued on to a hidden elevator that three people could fit into. Max was wearing that gorgeous fragrance that he was still trying to figure out. She smiled at him, a little uncertain he could tell. But bold, always bold. That had to be her father’s training.

  Keys in hand, he led the way to an old wooden door and unlocked it. As they entered, he flicked on a light switch. He would miss the place, he thought, as he scanned the metal staircase that looked like a sculpture and the bookcases that went from floor to walkway above. A large white beam formed an arch over the room they stood in. Chairs were placed at odd angles around a small, black fireplace, over which hung a Warhol painting. Walking briskly through the dining room, he noticed Max surveying the metallic ceiling and copper table. She seemed duly impressed.

  “Where the hell does all your money come from?”

  The question jolted him. The French simply never discussed money. Jamais.

  “This is a fairly modest place.”

  “You’re probably a trust-fund baby. They abound in the U.S.”

  “I’m sorry. I have to make a call. Make yourself at home.” He led her into the minimalist kitchen, where an eating bar protruded from an alcove.

  “I feel like I’m in a Star Trek film,” she said.

  “Enjoy the adventure.” He escaped quickly up the stairs to his bedroom, where he threw some clothes into a suitcase. When he returned, she was studying a framed photo of Véronique that was propped up against some books.

  “No one should be this thin.”

  “You’re right.” He knew what it had taken for Véronique to become perfect for magazine covers. She was anorexic, with no breasts and no hips to speak of, and a recovering drug addict. But he wouldn’t break her confidence.

  “What’s she like?”

  “She works hard, actually. And she revels in her job. She went through a grim period when she was on drugs, which is how I know where to send Antoine, and she got through that. And yes, she’s quite beautiful.”

  “Modeling is foreign to me.”

  “And police work would be for her, trust me. Enough talk about Véronique?” Max nodded, and followed him out.


  “You’re quite beautiful, too, you know. I forget that you’re half French. Where did your mother grow up?”

  “In Burgundy, I think.”

  “Perhaps one day you’ll want to explore your French roots.” They left the apartment and he announced that it was time for déjeuner. They walked to l’Arpège, a local restaurant where he was friends with the owner. A handsome, silver-haired man greeted Olivier warmly.

  The waiter arrived with a scampi carpaccio with oscietra caviar and a dash of fine Japanese olive oil, one of Olivier’s favorites. The white translucent raw scampi formed a rose, encircled by a thin line of sturgeon eggs that had a hint of gold on the surface. The sweetness of the shellfish versus the vivid salty flavor of the caviar expressed a dualism, which would reunite under the palate to form the most exquisite and perfect equilibrium. He looked over at Max, who seemed to be practically swooning, and smiled. There was nothing like the sensuousness of a great meal to remove all tension. They sipped on vintage champagne from the Joseph Perrier Company, Joséphine, a favorite in France.

  “I hate to rush you,” Olivier said after two hours, “but Monsieur Reynard is waiting. He can be impatient.”

  “I’ll be thinking about that dish on my deathbed,” Max said, and Olivier laughed at the exaggeration.

  ***

  Olivier had realized on the way back to the Valley that he was squeezing too much into one day, but the situation was urgent. Max hadn’t seemed the least bit tired, and in fact appeared to be enthusiastic about everything they were doing. Reynard awaited them in Epernay, and Olivier debated about taking Max in to meet him. Today had been a trial to see if she could cooperate.