Alima drew in a short breath. Her answer was a whisper. “Yes.”
Louis slapped his hand on his thigh. “We need to talk to that SDF.” Catherine could tell he tried to keep the hope out of his voice, but didn’t succeed by a long shot. “Do you know who he is? Could you identify him if we show you pictures?”
“I don’t know him, no. We don’t exactly run in the same circles.” There was no sting to Alima’s words now. “But I should be able to recognize him. Try to get a picture of the dog, too.”
“All right.” Louis slapped a hand on his thigh. “Thank you so much for your help, Alima.” They did la bise. “We’ll be back with pictures. Bonne soirée.” Have a good night.
Catherine and Louis took their leave and walked down rue Gutenberg. “I’ll accompany you home,” Louis said to Catherine when they were out of earshot of Alima. “It’s getting late.”
“Sure, if you want,” Catherine replied. “I live about two minutes down the next street.” She was already fantasizing about kicking her shoes off and taking a long bath.
When they turned the corner of Catherine’s street, she said, “So now what? We take pictures of all the homeless men in Toulouse?”
“Yep. Should be fun.”
Nineteen
“The OM don’t stand a chance. We’re going to kick their asses so hard they won’t need to get a return flight to Marseille.” Mouad’s eyes gleamed brighter than the setting sun as he threw his arms out, then hugged himself as if warming up to play in the upcoming soccer match himself.
Louis smiled at his friend’s enthusiasm. They were on their way to the Stadium from Mouad’s apartment to watch the Toulouse Football Club versus Olympique de Marseille. “Aren’t you being a tad optimistic?” Louis asked. “The OM is one of the best teams in the league, and let’s be realistic, the TFC isn’t.”
Mouad raised a finger in the air. “Ah! But you’re forgetting the stats. The TFC may lose a lot of matches, but they usually win against the big teams. Must work well under pressure or something.”
Louis pondered this while looking down on the Garonne. They were on the Saint Michel Bridge leading to the unoriginally named Stadium which was housed on an island in the middle of the river. Though the match didn’t start for another forty-five minutes, there were dozens of people walking in the same direction. Wouldn’t do to be late for such a high-stake game.
Louis realized Mouad was right. The TFC did tend to win against big teams like Lyon or Marseille. Against the smaller teams who battled to stay out of the bottom of the ranking, it was another deal altogether. Going to those matches was setting yourself up for a miserable evening.
Louis spotted a shiny new building along the river that hadn’t been there the last time he’d been home. “What’s that?” He elbowed his friend and pointed.
Mouad leaned over to get a good look. “That’s the rowing club’s new club house. You wouldn’t believe how proud they are of that thing.”
Well, it looked great, so why shouldn’t they be proud? As Louis watched, two rowers arrived at the dock from a trip down the river. They got out and put both oars on shore before lifting their skiffs out of the water. It was quite the balancing feat.
Louis cocked his head as he studied the second rower. There was something familiar about him, but Louis couldn’t figure out who it was.
Fifteen minutes later, Louis was talking with an acquaintance from university while Mouad retrieved their tickets. The line was already fifty meters long—they had been right to show up so early. As he laughed at his old classmate’s anecdote from work, Louis spotted a familiar figure making its way across the Stadium’s parking lot.
It was the rower from earlier, and now that he was closer, Louis realized why he hadn’t recognized who it was. This was no man, but a very big, muscular woman. Her name was Marie-Pierre Ezes and she had worked with Louis’s father since his very beginning at the Capitole.
“Will you excuse me for a moment?” Louis said to his friend. “I see someone over there that I should say hi to.”
“Sure, no problem. You have a great game. Hope I’ll see you around more often.”
“Absolutely,” Louis replied.
He made his way toward Marie-Pierre. When he was close enough to be heard, he shouted out to her.
Once she recognized Louis, she stopped and beamed a smile at him. “Louis. How nice to see you again.” Marie-Pierre hadn’t changed much beyond a few extra lines around the eyes and mouth. She still looked as if she could single-handedly defend Toulouse from an invasion. Half a head taller than Louis, her shoulders were broad and muscular. As long as Louis had known her, she had been a rower. She’d even qualified for a World Championship in her youth. From the look of the muscles bulging under her shirt now, she still worked out regularly. She had added bright red highlights to her light-brown hair, which brought some softness to an otherwise angular and stern face.
Louis pointed at the Stadium behind him. “I’m going to the game in a few minutes, but I thought I should at least say hello.”
“That’s sweet of you, Louis. How are you finding Toulouse? Has it changed much from the last time you were home?”
Smiling, Louis nodded toward the Stadium. “You’re fixing up on one of the most important buildings in the city. I’m not complaining.”
Marie-Pierre tittered in her girly voice. “So is this what you’re up to these days? Going to soccer matches?”
“That and hanging out with the city’s homeless.” Louis gave a crooked smile.
“SDFs?” Marie-Pierre frowned. “Whatever for?”
Louis shoved his hands in his pockets. “It’s a bit of a goose chase, really. I talked to the woman who found Papa’s body and she told me she’d seen an SDF on the Capitole only fifteen minutes earlier. I’ve been trying to find the man.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
“Not so great.” With half a smile to make light of his long but unproductive day, Louis summed up. “I was chased away by dogs twice, robbed of my three baguettes once, and was probably very close to getting myself killed when the girlfriend of one of the men asked me to marry her.”
Marie-Pierre chuckled, then turned to greet Mouad approaching with their tickets. “Monsieur Bensaïd.”
“Madame Ezes,” Mouad replied. They shook hands.
Hiking her bag farther up on her shoulder, Marie-Pierre nodded to the two men. “I’ll leave you two to enjoy your soccer game. Bonne soirée.” She stalked across the parking lot in the opposite direction of everybody else.
Louis turned back to Mouad. “So where are our seats?”
“Virage Est,” his friend replied, a familiar fanatic gleam in his eyes. “Right with the hardcore fans.”
“Of course,” Louis laughed. “Where else?”
Twenty
Louis held out two baguettes in one hand and a bag full of croissants and chocolatines in the other. The man pointed to the baguette. Despite the heat, the SDF wore a knit cap, what looked like two or three sweaters beneath a jacket that had probably been bought for skiing in the eighties, a pair of holey, dirty jeans, and army boots. His skin was weathered from living outdoors for years and his eyes were bloodshot.
Louis handed him one of the baguettes. “Would you let me take your picture, please? And also one of your dog?” He pointed to the German Shepherd lying at the man’s feet. The dog was a little on the skinny side. It had a nick in its ear, as well as some scars here and there showing he’d been in his fair share of fights. But generally speaking, he looked in better shape than his master.
Biting into the bread, the man glared at Louis. “What do you want our picture for?” He chewed carefully and only with the right side of his mouth. It didn’t look like he was too big on dental hygiene. “There’s nothing to see here.”
Louis brought out his phone and directed it at the man to take a picture. “No worries, man. I’m just looking for someone and need to show your picture to a friend.”
&nbs
p; The man held out the baguette with one piece missing to Louis and shielded himself from the camera with the other. “Take your bread back. I don’t want to be in your picture. Now get lost.”
Realizing what the man would have understood from what Louis said, he held his hands up, both to refuse to take the food back and to calm the man down. “Don’t worry, I won’t be showing it to the police or anything. I have a friend who saw a man and a dog close to the place where…something happened.” Now that he was on the subject anyway, he might as well try the more direct path. “I’m trying to find a man who was on place du Capitole in the middle of the night Tuesday, almost three weeks ago. I don’t suppose that was you?”
The man gave Louis a blank stare. “You expect me to remember where I was on a Tuesday night three weeks ago? I don’t even know what day today is. Do you remember where you were that night?”
Good point. Of course, Louis knew exactly where he had been. When he’d learned the time of his father’s death, he immediately thought back to what he was doing when his father drew his last breath. He’d been out having dinner with a group of friends, making merry. He suspected the guilt accompanying that thought would never go away.
Louis waved the baguette away. He wasn’t going anywhere near food that had been in that mouth. He put his phone in his pocket to show he wouldn’t be taking any pictures. “I get your point,” he said. “However, this person was seen dragging around a large box under the arcades. I don’t suppose that rings any bells?”
The poor man eyed Louis as if judging his mental capacity and finding him lacking while he took another bite of the bread. “Why would I be dragging around a box? Do you see any boxes?” He extended a hand to show off his possessions: an old bike with dirty bags strapped on the front and back, presumably filled with all his earthly possessions.
“Right,” Louis sighed in defeat. “Sorry to have bothered you.” He turned away from the man.
“If you want information on what’s going on around the Capitole, you should try Laurent and Benoît,” the SDF said to Louis’s back. As Louis turned back, he added, “Well, you should try Laurent. Apparently Benoît turned up dead in the canal this morning.”
Louis shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He couldn’t read the man at all. Was he upset by his colleague’s demise?
“It happens.” The man pulled a bottle of wine from an inside pocket of his jacket and took a swig. Louis was glad he didn’t offer to share.
A thought was nagging at the back of Louis’s mind. “Did this man have a dog?”
The man huffed. “Of course he did.”
Of course. All these guys had dogs. Still, Louis had a bad feeling about this. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, heat notwithstanding.
“Do you know what happened?” Louis was showing too much interest in Benoît and the SDF squinted at him in suspicion. Of what, Louis couldn’t imagine.
His informer shook his head. “But you can ask his buddy, Laurent. They both lived under the pedestrian bridge down by the Conseil Général. Laurent should still be there.”
“Thank you,” Louis said. He gave the man a croissant as thanks, then speed-walked along the path by the canal.
Ten minutes later, Louis knocked on the dirty canvas of a tent under the pedestrian bridge. “Hello?” he called. Cars sped past on both sides of the canal—two lanes on this side and three on the other. This was hardly a calm spot, though the canal with its towering trees was picturesque. An old couple was busy picking figs from a tree at the foot of the bridge. Guess the city of Toulouse wouldn’t mind.
He heard movement inside the tent, then the whole thing shifted as its occupant approached the opening. The zipper opened enough for a dirty blond head to stick out. “What do you want?” the man rasped.
“Are you Laurent?” Louis asked. “Benoît’s friend? I have food.” He held up his last baguette and the bag of pastries.
The man’s eyes fixed on the bread, but he said nothing.
“Here,” Louis said and held out the baguette. “Consider it a gift.”
The man, who was presumably named Laurent, thought about it for five more seconds before opening the tent’s zipper all the way and extending a long arm to take the bread. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
“Am I correct in assuming you’re Laurent?” Louis asked again.
Laurent nodded.
“Friend of Benoît?”
Another nod.
Louis lowered his voice. “And Benoît died this morning?”
Mouth full of bread, Laurent squinted at Louis. He apparently had no qualms about talking with his mouth full. “What’s it to you? What do you want?”
“I’m looking for someone—”
“It wasn’t me.” Crumbs flew as the blond man spoke.
Crossing his arms, Louis pursed his lips at the man. “I haven’t even told you anything yet.”
“No matter what it is, it wasn’t me.”
“What about your friend Benoît?”
Laurent took another bite of the baguette as he gave Louis a dark look. The already pronounced lines on his face became dark grooves of dirt. “What about him? It wasn’t him either.”
“Look.” Louis sighed. “I don’t wish you any harm. I’m looking for a guy who could have seen something when my father was killed.” The man watched Louis closely from beneath bushy eyebrows. “A man was seen dragging a big box through place du Capitole on a Tuesday night three weeks ago. He apparently had a dog. I’m looking for that man, to check if he may have seen something important.”
There was no movement from Laurent except for the chewing. Louis must have passed muster, for the man asked, “Why us?”
Louis drew a hand through his hair. “I was told that you guys sometimes hang out around the Capitole. But I’m basically walking around speaking to all the SDFs I can find.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“C’est un régal.” It’s a blast.
The man gave a quick nod, but apparently wanted to make sure he kept all his payment before speaking to Louis. So Louis stood there patiently while Laurent finished his breakfast. Once the last crumb was gone, the frown returned to the man’s face. “It’s not me you want, anyway. Benoît was the one who liked to hang out close to the rich people around the Capitole.”
Figured. “And he died this morning?”
Laurent nodded with a sad cast to his chapped lips.
“Can you tell me about it?”
The man was far from smiling, but at least he started talking. “When I woke up this morning, Benoît was already out. I took my time getting out of the house.” He waved at the tilted tent behind him. “When I was taking a piss, I saw Benoît’s sleeping bag floating in the canal over there.” He pointed to a spot before the bridge. “So I yelled for Benoît to come fish it out, but got no answer. Figured I’d better get it myself so he wouldn’t try to steal mine.”
Louis thought of how his clothes had smelled after a few minutes in the canal and several washes. He shuddered at the thought that these guys would sleep in a bag after it spent hours in the canal and simply dried out.
Laurent took no notice. He was staring into space, lost in the telling of his story. “But when I got the bag out of the water, there was Benoît. He’d been floating inside the thing.” Laurent looked up at Louis with the scared eyes of a five-year-old finding monsters under his bed. “His eyes were wide open.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Louis said as he squatted down in front of Laurent. “Did you call the police?”
Laurent nodded. “A lady walking her dog did it for me. I don’t have a phone.” Resentment was clear in his eyes as he looked in the direction of the police station less than a kilometer down the canal. “They came, dragged him out of the water, and took off with both him and the sleeping bag.” It might be warm now, but an extra sleeping bag probably wouldn’t have hurt come winter. Louis would ask his mother if she had some old blankets he could bring back
here, even though it was poor compensation for his losses.
Louis noticed the two dogs lying on the concrete wall next to the water, both with their noses over the murky depths. He turned to Laurent. “Is one of those dogs Benoît’s?”
Laurent sat up straight and yelled, “You’re not taking his dog! He’s mine now. It’s all I have left of him. What are you going to do with him, anyway?”
Afraid he might be in for another swim in the canal, Louis stood up and backed away in the direction opposite the dogs. “I’m not going to take the dog, Laurent. I don’t want or need a dog. I was wondering if I could perhaps take its picture? I think Benoît might have been the man I’ve been looking for, and a friend of mine could confirm it if I show her a picture of the dog. Actually,” he added when he saw Laurent calming down, “I could really use a picture of Benoît himself. I don’t suppose you have one?”
“Of course,” Laurent deadpanned. “Just a second and I’ll go inside to get our family album.”
“No pictures, huh?” That would have been too easy.
“Nope.” Laurent pointed at the two dogs. “All we have to remember each other by are the dogs. It’s not like we get marked graves or anything.”
There would be no wake and funeral for Benoît. He wouldn’t have any money of his own, and Louis assumed he had no contact with his family. His body would end up in a pauper’s grave. Louis suddenly felt grateful for their roomy family plot.
“Can I please take a picture of your dogs?” Louis pleaded with Laurent. “It would allow me to know if I can abort my search for the witness. Though I warn you, if it was Benoît, the police might come back to ask some questions.” Way to make sure the man would cooperate.
“Right,” Laurent huffed. “Like they looked into the drowning.”
“That’s the official cause of death?” Louis asked. He stepped closer to the dogs to take their picture.
Laurent nodded.
“But you don’t believe that? Couldn’t he have drank a little too much last night and just fallen in?”
The Red Brick Cellars: A Tolosa Mystery Page 13