The Curse of La Fontaine

by M. L. Longworth

  When he walked into the church’s offices a bell sounded. An elderly woman (Why do elderly women always take care of priests? he wondered) turned around from a filing cabinet and waved her hands in the air. “You’re here!” she bellowed, walking across the office in long steps, giving the judge a handshake that might have even hurt Bruno Paulik’s hand. He knew immediately that she was Philomène Joubert. “A few minutes late, but no bother,” she added. She picked up a telephone and dialed one of the offices, bellowing into the receiver, “The judge is here!,” hanging it up with a thud. “Did you get held up or what?”

  “Yes,” Verlaque answered, enjoying the interrogation of the infamous Mme Joubert, director of the church’s choir, friend of Florence Bonnet’s, and neighbor, across the courtyard, of Marine’s. “At Michaud’s, as a matter of fact.”

  “What’s your fancy there?” she demanded, her hands on her hips.

  “Facile. Brioche glacée à chaque fois.”

  “Umph. I would have taken you for a croissant man.”

  “Too many crumbs,” Verlaque said, patting his jacket, “on the Ralph Lauren jacket.”

  Philomène laughed, slapping his upper right arm. “I must say, it looked like you had a lovely wedding, even if it wasn’t here in Aix.”

  “I agree,” said a voice behind them. “I, too, saw the photos.” The priest extended his hand and said, “I’m Père Jean-Luc. I’m very pleased to meet you. Please come into my office.”

  Père Jean-Luc’s office was just as Verlaque imagined a priest’s office to be: a heavy wooden desk, a bit too big for the room, dark wood floor-to-ceiling bookcases with mostly hardbacks, thick red curtains. Verlaque sat down opposite the priest and asked, “Did my secretary explain why I’m here?”

  “Yes, sadly,” Père Jean-Luc answered. “The skeleton found in the garden. It’s the Castelbajacs’ youngest son, isn’t it?”

  Veralque nodded. “Yes, it’s Grégory. Did you know him well?”

  “I baptized him.” The priest’s eyes watered and Verlaque stayed silent, waiting for him to continue. He went on. “And I saw him through his communion and confirmation. And then Grégory’s rebel years hit, and he stopped coming to Mass. It was a sore point between him and his parents, but I didn’t take it personally.” The priest stopped to blow his nose. “Grégory came to me here, in this office, and apologized. You see, it seems he had been introduced to the atheist texts of Jacques Derrida by his philosophy teacher.”

  “There is nothing outside the text,” Verlaque said, smiling. “That’s all I ever got out of Derrida.”

  “That’s more than me, I’m afraid.”

  “Did you see Grégory the last time he was here, eight years ago?” Verlaque asked.

  “Yes, but only briefly. I was much occupied with the funeral of the vicomtesse, Grégory’s paternal grandmother. But I saw that he had changed . . .”

  Verlaque leaned forward. “How so?”

  “Thinner, more wiry. But more than the physical change, I saw that the joy had gone from his face. He had always been a rascal, that’s true, but he was a sweet boy and an optimist. I spoke to him after his grandmother’s funeral and he seemed depressed and agitated. He said he was going to leave France and go back down south as soon as possible. But he never got there—”

  “Did you know any of Grégory’s friends?”

  “Oh no,” the priest answered. “I don’t get involved in their private lives. There was a retreat just before the kids’ confirmations, but I don’t know if Grégory went or not. The younger priests always accompany them. Frère Joël, my current assistant, only arrived three years ago. I’ll look up in our records who was here at the time and give him a call. Would that help?”

  “Yes, thank you very much,” Verlaque said. “I asked the countess, but she had forgotten their names.”

  “Shock,” Père Jean-Luc suggested. “I’ve heard she isn’t doing well since they heard the news.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Verlaque said. He got up and shook the priest’s hand, said goodbye, and left his office, walking into the waiting room, where Philomène was watering a giant potted palm. The front door opened and an elegantly dressed older man walked in, taking off his hat. “Chère madame,” he said, exchanging the bise with her.

  Philomène took Verlaque by the arm. “Judge Verlaque, please meet the Duke of Pradet.”

  The duke stared at Verlaque, then forced a smile. “I’m sorry, Judge Verlaque. We’re all upset over the skeleton. Grégory.” He held out his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “I was going to call on you today,” Verlaque said, shaking the duke’s hand. “Perhaps we can talk here?”

  “You can use my office,” Père Jean-Luc, who had just walked in, said. “I’m on my way into the church.”

  “Thank you,” Verlaque said.

  The duke followed Verlaque down the hall and into the priest’s office. “I didn’t know the young Castelbajac,” the duke began before he closed the door. “Although I knew his parents.”

  “Not at all?”

  “No, I don’t think we ever met.”

  “Did you hear anything unusual in the garden eight years ago, a few days after the vicomtesse’s funeral? It was on August eighth.”

  The duke shook his head. “In August I’m usually in Burgundy; it’s too hot for me here. I’ll check my diaries. But my house is at the opposite end of what is a very long garden, so it’s unlikely that we would have seen or heard anything.”

  Verlaque said, “I can see your house from my wife’s terrace. But if someone is making noise in the garden, we hear it.”

  “A lovely woman, Marine Bonnet,” the duke said, ignoring his comment. “I’ve met her once or twice at dinner parties. You’re going to think that’s all I do . . . go to dinner parties.”

  Verlaque pursed his lips. “And your wife? Did she know Grégory?”

  “Highly unlikely,” the duke quickly answered. “Anyway, it’s impossible to ask her now. She died of cancer six years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Verlaque said. “Are you friends with the Castelbajacs?”

  “Yes, I guess you could say that,” the duke answered. “But we don’t see as much of each other now that they’ve moved permanently to the seaside.”

  “How was their relationship with Grégory?”

  The duke glared at Verlaque. “I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but they loved that boy unconditionally.”

  “I’m only trying to work out Grégory’s state of mind eight years ago,” Verlaque explained. “I’m not blaming anyone.”

  “They adored the boy. Well, if that’s all, I promised Père Jean-Luc I’d help prepare the church for a fund-raising event. We’re buying a badly needed new organ.”

  “Good luck to you, then,” Verlaque said, shaking his hand. “I’ll leave a donation with Mme Joubert.”

  “That’s very kind.”

  They left the priest’s office together; the duke then passed through a small wooden door that Verlaque assumed led into the church. It was the same one Père Jean-Luc had used. Verlaque got out his checkbook and wrote a check for fifty euros, giving it to Philomène. “For the organ,” he said.

  She opened a file and slipped the check in, thanking him. “I’ll leave with you,” she said, looking at her watch.

  She locked the red door behind her as they stepped out into the street. A battered three-speed bicycle was locked to a lamppost and Philomène quickly undid the lock, hanging the thick, plastic-covered chain around her neck like a giant oversize necklace. Verlaque found it hard to keep a straight face. “You bicycle here from your apartment around the corner?”

  Philomène laughed, walking beside her bike. “I have errands to run,” she explained, pointing to her rear pannier in which she had set a basket covered with a tea towel. “I visit elderly and sick parishioners an
d take them treats.”

  “How kind,” Verlaque said earnestly.

  “What else am I going to do all day? Twiddle my thumbs?”

  “That I can’t imagine,” he said. “What did you make?”

  Philomène patted the tea towel but didn’t lift it. “Little cookies and cakes; whatever strikes me. They like anything.”

  “I imagine they do.”

  She pushed her bicycle along, then looked behind her and leaned into Verlaque. “I wanted to talk to you in private.”

  “Yes?”

  “The Duke de Pradet has always been kind enough to me,” she said. “But I couldn’t stand his stuck-up wife. She always thought she could fart the highest.”

  Verlaque stopped walking and bent over, laughing.

  “I thought maybe you had never heard that expression,” Philomène said, glancing over at the judge and allowing a sly smile to form at the corners of her mouth. “Marseille. Menpenti, to be exact. My husband grew up there. Anyway, the duchess was as thick as thieves with the Castelbajacs. They all belonged to this ridiculous group; you may have seen their stickers around on lampposts and signs: Le Roi Pourquoi Pas?”

  Verlaque laughed again. “They’re for real? I thought those slogans were some drunken university students’ hoax. But I do know that monarchy groups exist.”

  “Of course they exist.”

  “Very interesting . . . ,” said Verlaque, trying to amuse her. “So you knew the Castelbajacs?”

  Philomène shrugged. “Just to see them. We’d nod in each other’s direction. My husband and I ran a print shop. Not exactly the same walk of life.”

  “And Grégory?”

  “Same,” she replied. She looked pensive, as if she was about to add something interesting, but instead she said, “Well, I’ve got to shove off.” She stopped walking and straddled the bike, putting on what looked like a pair of WWII aviation goggles. “I need these! Car exhaust!” she called out, waving goodbye.

  Verlaque returned her wave, wishing she would have offered him one of her little cakes. He was famished.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Verlaque Eats a Disappointing Lunch

  I’m on the rue Mistral and starving,” Verlaque said into his cell phone. “I could have been eating at Bear’s.”

  “I’m at school,” Marine replied. “I’d come and meet you, but we have a faculty meeting in a half hour.”

  “Merde. I’ll just swing by your place then.”

  “No!” she quickly said.

  Verlaque was about to reply when Mamadou walked by, whistling, pushing a wheelbarrow full of kitchen supplies. He asked, “Why no—”

  “Empty fridge,” Marine said. “Sorry.”

  “I ate a sandwich at my desk yesterday,” Verlaque said, walking along the narrow street toward the Cours Mirabeau.

  “Poor boy,” Marine replied, laughing. “Just get the plat du jour at the office.”

  He hesitated before replying. The “office,” or their regular meeting place, Le Mazarin Café, was a great place to meet for morning coffee or early-evening drinks, but not to eat. But if the plat du jour wasn’t to his liking, he could at least get two fried lamb chops—surely the cook couldn’t mess that up—and a glass of Hélène Paulik’s wine. “Okay, the office it is. See you tonight at my place, I presume.”

  “Sounds great. I’ll pick up stuff for dinner on my way home. I may be a little late—”

  “Your civil-servant endless meetings, I know.”

  Marine bit her lip—her husband was also a civil servant, but he had both the power and the nerve to skip meetings whenever he saw fit. “It’s for a good cause,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Gotta run!”

  • • •

  Upstairs from where Verlaque stood, Bear sat on his weathered sofa, smoking a rare cigarette. He kept a pack of Marlboros in a drawer for times like this, smoking one or two a few times a month. Bill time. He had the living room window open and had heard Verlaque’s low voice, but not the conversation, and could tell from the judge’s tone that it had been a light one. A pile of mail sat in front of him on the coffee table and he flipped through the envelopes: electricity bill, a bill from one of his organic farmers, a wine supplier bill, and, finally, what looked like a personal letter, with his name typed and posted in Avignon. He ripped it open and read. His hand began to shake and he quickly set the single sheet of paper down, getting up to make himself an espresso. He downed the coffee in one go, then walked over and read the letter again. It contained two sentences and was fashioned with letters of various sizes and colors cut from newspapers and magazines, like in a 1940s American movie. It read: I know who you are and what you did. Leave Aix now.

  • • •

  An hour and a half later Verlaque was walking back down the rue Mistral. He had eaten the lamb chops—slightly over done—at the Café Mazarin with Jean-Marc Sauvat, a childhood friend of Marine’s and now one of his best friends. Jean-Marc was a lawyer, a quiet and reserved man with a dry sense of humor. He was also a member of Verlaque’s cigar club, so they passed the time talking of all the other members behind their backs.

  Verlaque stopped in front of La Fontaine, whose door had two notices, an official one from the city of Aix’s department of police declaring the restaurant a crime scene, and a second one, handwritten: “Closed until further notice. Sorry, Bear.” Verlaque cupped his hands at the window and saw the interior of the small restaurant, chairs stacked on tables, and then through to the back garden via a rear window. Two police officers were on their knees, slowly digging with what looked like tiny forks.

  To the right of La Fontaine he stopped and rang the bottom of three bells, marked TIVOLLE. The door quickly opened as if the Tivolles had been expecting him, and Bénédicte Tivolle ushered the judge into a spacious hallway. He looked up and saw that the grand stone staircase went up at least three floors, leading the eye to the ceiling with a painted fresco of some flying mythological gods and goddesses. Those kinds of paintings always bored him.

  “My husband, Serge, has his interior design office on the second floor, and we have to rent out the third,” Bénédicte said, following the judge’s eyes up and down the stairs. “A Canadian family is here for two years. He works for Shell.”

  “It’s a grand house,” Verlaque said. “And it’s beautifully preserved. I’ve always admired it from the street.” He noted that she had said “have to rent out” instead of, simply, “rent out.”

  “Thank you,” Bénédicte replied. “That’s Serge’s profession, so it had better be well taken care of. For more than a year he labored over these paint colors for the walls of the stairwell. I won’t tell you how long he took fussing over the rest of the house.” She waved her hand in the air. “The pink going up the stairway walls is actually called Pale Trout. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Serge thinks it’s the bee’s knees.” She rolled her eyes and sighed, and Verlaque felt a twinge of sympathy for poor old Serge. She said, “Follow me into the living room.”

  They passed through a small music room—a white piano faced one wall and a cello leaned against a bookcase full of books and sheet music—into a larger room that was sparsely furnished. A large black marble fireplace graced the far wall and opposite it two French doors gave onto the back garden. Verlaque walked up to one of them and looked out. A stone wall surrounded the garden, low enough so that it could be easily climbed over, but high enough so that he couldn’t see the police officers digging next door. An olive tree sat in the middle of the Tivolles’ garden, the trunk surrounded by a circular wooden bench. “I have a terrace,” Verlaque offered, “but have always dreamed of a garden.” He was lying, of course. He much preferred a terrace, high up, with a view. But he wanted to hear Bénédicte Tivolle speak of the garden.

  “I won’t beat around the bush,” she said. “It is our haven, despite the fact th
at nothing except for olive trees survive in it. But if the restaurant next door is permitted to install outdoor seating, we won’t be able to use it except in the early morning.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Are you friends with your neighbors?”

  “Do you know the Castelbajacs?” she asked. “Is that what you mean? We know them, yes. We were neighbors for decades. And Serge renovated their kitchen before they sold the house. They underpaid him, naturally. And he didn’t complain, naturally.”

  Verlaque asked, “So you’ve heard about Grégory—”

  “Yes. Very sad news.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Not well,” she answered. “I teach at Lycée Vauvenargues, but Grégory went to La Nativité.”

  “Do you have children?”

  She nodded toward the music room. “Two, a boy and a girl. She plays the piano and he the cello. They’re twins, and both go to Vauvenargues.”

  Verlaque looked at Mme Tivolle, trying to guess her age.

  “They are fifteen and were born when I was forty-two. A miracle.”

  He smiled. “Congratulations. So they were too young to be friends with Grégory—”

  “Yes, and I didn’t trust him to babysit. Besides, my husband has two nieces who live nearby who dote on the twins.”

  “You didn’t trust Grégory?”

  She winced. “He was a nice boy—”

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  “But he was restless and fidgety. I couldn’t trust him with my babies.”