The Curse of La Fontaine

by M. L. Longworth

  “They’re getting more and more scarce,” Philippe said. He turned to his brothers. “What if we bought one? We could teach our kids how to sail, and Papa would have a grand time. Maman, too. She loved sailing. It would get their minds off—”

  “I’ve always loved their lateen sails,” Ludovic said, as if he hadn’t heard Philippe’s idea. He stopped and looked out to sea, shading his eyes from the sun. “The triangular rig rises better toward the wind. Do you guys remember how easy it was to maneuver? Tracking and beating the wind. Tracking and beating the wind. Tracking and beating the wind. When we were out in ours, it felt like we were the only people on the sea.”

  • • •

  Manuel Arruda did not hide his surprise, or hostility, when he opened the front door for Verlaque. Manuel didn’t know who Verlaque was, but that didn’t matter. The duke was not to be disturbed. The servant was about to tell Verlaque that the duke was away when the duke walked into the town house’s front hall and asked, “Frère Joël, is that you?” He saw the judge standing on the doorstep and mumbled, “Oh . . .”

  Even from the front door Verlaque could smell the smoke. He smiled and asked, “May I come in, Duke? I have a few questions—”

  Manuel quickly said, “The duke was about to have lunch—”

  “I won’t be a minute,” Verlaque replied, walking across the tiled floor to shake the duke’s hand. He looked to his right and could see the last tiny flames in the living room’s marble fireplace. “Odd day for a fire,” he said.

  “Please, come into the salon,” the duke said. “We won’t be long, Manuel.” He closed the door behind him and gestured for the judge to take a seat.

  Verlaque sat down and leaned forward, picking up off the floor a piece of paper that had blown out of the fireplace, its edges still burning.

  “You’ll burn yourself!” the duke said, trying to stop the judge.

  Verlaque put on his reading glasses to examine the paper. “A fleur-de-lys,” he said, holding it up.

  “I have a lifetime’s accumulation of paperwork,” the duke said. “I’m trying to tidy up.”

  “Funny time for it, on a warm spring day.”

  “You said you had some questions,” the duke said, ignoring Verlaque’s comment.

  Verlaque continued holding the paper, but, raising his eyes over his reading glasses, he looked at the duke. “You left the royalist society here in Aix over a dispute.”

  “Not a dispute. I just no longer had the time.”

  Verlaque found it odd that someone who didn’t work used lack of time as an excuse. “When did you stop going to their meetings?”

  “Oh, long ago. Maybe ten or twelve years ago. You can check their records if you want an exact date.” The duke knew that he sounded snarky, but he was tired and expecting his friend Frère Joël. He normally hid his impatience—it was one of the things he was proud of—but today he did not.

  “But your late wife stayed in the association.”

  “That’s right.”

  Verlaque thought that the duke looked uncomfortable. “What kind of a relationship did Marguerite have with Charles de Saint-Félix? He’s a local lawyer—”

  “I know very well who Charles is.”

  Ah, we’re getting something here, thought Verlaque. “Did they work in the ANF together? Eight years ago?”

  The duke shrugged. “Yes, they were both members, but as I said, I was no longer a member.” He knew very well what Marguerite and Charles were scheming, but he could not tell the judge about it.

  “Did they have things in common? Did they want to bring back the monarchy, at whatever the cost? Did Charles and Marguerite see eye-to-eye on things?”

  “You’d better stop there.”

  Verlaque persisted, “Did they have more in common than you and your own wife did?”

  The duke finally lost his patience. “Yes, they probably did. If you must know, as we aged our interests changed. We loved each other but didn’t always see eye-to-eye as we did when we were young. You’re a newlywed. You’ll see. It’s entirely possible that someday you and your wife will grow apart.”

  • • •

  By the time he got back to the front steps of the Palais de Justice, Verlaque felt like he had been punched in the stomach. The duke’s words had saddened him, and he knew he had pushed the old man too far. He walked into his office and closed the door. He sat down, relit his Upmann, and pulled out the tiny piece of paper he had taken from the duke’s fireplace. The fleur-de-lys was very clear, but it looked like there was a date written underneath it. He couldn’t read it, even with his reading glasses. He got up and pulled the Oxford dictionary off his bookshelf. He had two: The OED in his apartment had been his grandparents’, one of the few items he had taken from their Paris house, and this copy had been his in university. He put his big hands around the tiny brass knob and opened the drawer that was a part of the two-volume boxed set, pulling out the magnifying glass. Holding it up to the paper, he could now read what was written under the symbol of France, the symbol of the French monarchy. It was a date: August 15, eight years ago.

  Verlaque was about to phone Marine when Paulik knocked on the door, opening it to stick his head in. “Sorry, but it’s important. I think,” he said.

  Verlaque looked up, setting his phone down on the desk.

  “You should come downstairs,” Paulik continued. “They’ve brought in the dishwasher from La Fontaine restaurant.”

  “What?”

  “He was picked up for loitering; at least that’s what they’re saying downstairs. Two of the officers have been following him the past week.”

  “Why on earth?”

  Paulik said, “I think he was followed partly because of the scar on his face, his size, and—”

  “The color of his skin,” Verlaque cut in, standing up and walking to the window. He opened it and, reaching to the edge of the window, wedged his cigar in a space about half-an-inch-thick between the wooden shutter and its iron latch.

  “Genius,” Paulik said, watching.

  “That way, the cigars don’t roll off the windowsill,” Verlaque answered, closing the window. “There’s still five euros’ worth of Cuban cigar there.” They walked out of the office together and turned down a hallway, heading for the stairs. “Something’s going on with me,” Verlaque began. He stopped speaking when someone came up behind them, and after the colleague said “Bonjour” and walked into the restroom, he continued, “I’m eating out less, waiting for the summer clothing sales, saving my cigar stubs—”

  Paulik laughed nervously. He wanted to say “Welcome to the real world, ” but instead said, “I don’t think you’re going to get canned over the restaurant or Kévin Malongo’s suicide.”

  “Oh, you don’t think so?” Verlaque asked.

  When they got downstairs, Yves Roussel was pacing back and forth in front of room 104. “He’s in there,” he said, tilting his head toward the room’s closed door.

  Verlaque looked down, always curious about Roussel’s footwear and how big a heel he’d be wearing.

  “New boots?” Paulik asked, as he had been doing the same thing.

  Roussel tapped his heels together. “Bought ’em in Dallas. At that law conference last month.” They were cowboy boots—Roussel’s preferred shoe—and the leather was turquoise, with yellow stitching.

  “Nice,” Paulik said flatly.

  “So what is the dishwasher in there for?” Verlaque asked, pointing to the door.

  “His name’s Mamadou Zouma,” Roussel said. “We’d had complaints that he was wandering the streets—”

  “Walking around?” Paulik said drily. “Nobody ever does that in Aix.”

  “Aaaand,” Roussel continued, “he’s been sleeping in the Parc Jourdan. But what’s more important is this.” He held out an envelope folded in half, then handed it
to Verlaque.

  Verlaque opened it and then passed it to Paulik. “‘Ludovic de Castelbajac, 18 rue Cardinale,’” he said, reading who it had been addressed to.

  Roussel said, “Zouma had slipped into the building when the front door wasn’t latched properly and the concierge caught him red-handed, going through the count’s mail. That’s Ludovic de Castelbajac I’m talking about. His father’s actually the real count, but he gets the title, too, because . . .” Roussel paused, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Because Ludovic is the eldest son,” Verlaque said.

  “Voilà,” Roussel said. “We called Ludovic de Castelbajac after the police brought in M. Zouma, and he went berserk. He said to keep Zouma here, that he was dangerous, and that he’d like to press charges.”

  “Dangerous?” Verlaque asked.

  “The count went berserk because someone went through his mail?” Paulik asked.

  “No, no,” Roussel replied impatiently. “The count insists that Zouma killed his brother.”

  Chapter Twenty

  L’Esmérelda

  We couldn’t close our eyes because then we’d become seasick, so we squinted, with the rain pounding down on us,” Mamadou said, holding his large hands around a white mug decorated with red hearts. Paulik had found the mug in the staff room and filled it with tea. “The storm lasted eight hours. Twenty-foot waves crashed over the dingy; we were lying on our backs, terrified that we’d fall out. Neither of us could swim. We stayed like that all night, and the next morning the sun came out. The sky was blue and the sea was calm, as if we had changed worlds. We were parched with thirst but managed to talk. We wanted to talk. We talked about our parents, about soccer. About Mandela. Obama.”

  There wasn’t a sound in the room; Verlaque, Paulik, and Roussel, even Roussel, were mesmerized. Mamadou, hands trembling, lifted the mug to his mouth and took a sip of tea. Verlaque imagined that it was almost as if they had just rescued Mamadou from that dingy and he was sipping his first drink in days. Perhaps they had rescued him by just listening to his story, by letting him speak.

  Mamadou set the mug down and continued speaking. “And then we couldn’t chat anymore. We were too thirsty, and when the sun went down it got unbearably cold. But at least the sea was calm. I don’t know how we slept, but we did. I guess we were so exhausted that we slept. And then the next morning when we got up Vianney began vomiting, and there was blood in his vomit. He had been sick on the ship, too, and I knew that wasn’t good. I prayed for someone to rescue us. And a few hours later, like a miracle, we heard someone calling. ‘Hello!’ they called. ‘Hello!’ We turned around and behind us was a fishing boat.”

  “Is Vianney your brother?” Verlaque asked.

  “Yes. He was my younger brother. He’s dead.”

  “When did this happen?” Verlaque asked.

  “Ten years ago.”

  “What happened next?” Paulik asked.

  “The fishermen were from Liberia, and they took us to the port authorities in their town. We were taken to a cell; it was a kind of temporary prison, until they figured out what to do, and we didn’t mind . . . we were so relieved not to be out on the open sea anymore. But Vianney kept coughing. He had been too dehydrated from the seasickness, too hungry, too thirsty. Six days later he was dead. I stayed in that cell for five more months, thinking of Vianney, thinking of how I had let him down, let our dead parents down. I was supposed to protect him. The big brother. And then they flew me back to Togo. I soon left there for Cape Town, hoping to find work, but there was nothing. I lived under a bridge with dangerous people. But at least in Cape Town there were docks. And so I did it again.”

  “Stowed away on a ship?” Verlaque asked, not believing his ears. But how else had Mamadou gotten there?

  “I knew I would. Living under that bridge was worse than the dinghy. That whole area was full of thieves and thugs.”

  “Is that how you got the scar?” Verlaque asked, gesturing to his own cheek.

  “I got that before, when Vianney and I were kids, just after our parents had died. I took Vianney to Cape Town to find work, and we were attacked. Under that same bridge. So after Vianney died and I found myself back there, I knew I had to leave that place. And the next time I’d be smarter on the ship and not get caught. I’d be more prepared. And I’d be luckier.”

  “What happened next?” Roussel asked, like a child wanting to hear the rest of a fable before bed.

  “A boat coming to Marseille had docked,” Mamadou said. “France is a country that takes care of you. Free hospitals, good food, beaches.” He managed to smile as he added, “So-so soccer players. But it sounded like a dream. And just like the boat that I took with Vianney, there was no night watchman. It was easy to slip on board.”

  “That seems unbelievable,” Verlaque said.

  “I was lucky,” Mamadou said. Verlaque noticed that Mamadou used the work luck a lot. “Some ships are harder to get onto, but there’s always a way. Some guys use a stowaway pole.” Seeing the perplexed faces of his interviewers, Mamadou made a vertical gesture with his hand. “They are long bamboo poles with toeholds and a hook. Other guys get on when the love boat pulls up at night.”

  “Love boat?” Roussel asked.

  “They bring prostitutes and drugs and liquor,” Mamadou explained. “There are lots of them in the Cape. But this time I didn’t hide in the engine room, like Vianney and I had on the Esmérelda. That was horrible—”

  “The fumes?” Verlaque asked. He made a mental note of the ship’s name; it was the first time Mamadou had mentioned it.

  Mamadou nodded. “The fumes got to Vianney and made him lightheaded. But for me the worse part was the noise—”

  “The turbines,” Paulik offered.

  “Yes, my ears kept ringing. And the heat was unbearable, with no fresh air. I thought: Next time, I’d rather be cold. Next hiding spot has to be cold and quiet. So in the ship heading to Marseille I hid in a big tool trunk next to the shipping containers. It looked like it hadn’t been used for a long time. At night I could walk around the containers and stretch. I had taken some food with me and a bag filled with orange juice, and one night I found a bottle of water and some crackers that someone had left lying in a corner. I had no idea how long we were at sea, so when we docked and I slipped off the boat and got to a busy street, it was the first thing I asked. What the date was. I had been in that trunk for nine days.” Mamadou finished his tea and set the mug down, his hands no longer shaking.

  Verlaque leaned forward and said, “I’m sorry, but let’s go back to that first boat, when you and your brother were forced off.”

  Mamadou hung his head.

  “What exactly happened?”

  “One of the sailors found us,” Mamadou replied, his voice cracking. “Vianney was making too much noise; he kept coughing and retching. The sailor took us up on deck and called for the captain. They spoke Spanish, but I could tell that it wasn’t the captain’s first language. He terrified me. I thought to myself, This is it. You’re done for.”

  “Mamadou, this is where things get tricky. I want you to tell me who the captain of the Esmérelda was.”

  Mamadou looked up. “Ludovic de Castelbajac.”

  “Did he force you and Vianney into the dinghy?”

  “It was his order. One of the sailors had a knife, and he and another one—they were Filipino—forced us onto the dinghy. The captain looked at us with hatred, and he said to them, ‘Just deal with it.’”

  • • •

  An officer brought Mamadou a sandwich and an apple—it was almost 6:00 p.m.—and Paulik, Verlaque, and Roussel met in Verlaque’s office, where he could make them decent coffees.

  “I don’t trust him,” Roussel said, pacing back and forth.

  “You were riveted,” Verlaque said.

  “I always am when someone tells a good story,” Rous
sel said. “But it’s fiction. He chose that boat to Marseille not for the beaches and good food but because it was coming to France. He was going to come back and deal with Castelbajac. Vengeance is such a good motive for murder.”

  “But Ludovic wasn’t killed,” Paulik said. “His kid brother was.”

  “A mix-up,” Roussel said. “Maybe it was dark and Zouma couldn’t see well. Or the kid brother got in the way, trying to protect Ludovic.”

  “Grégory de Castelbajac was killed in a passionate attack,” Verlaque said. “You make it sound like it was premeditated. Our African dishwasher has no motive. Besides, Mamadou’s been working around the corner from Ludovic’s apartment and yet he has never laid a finger on him.”

  “Until now,” Roussel said. “We don’t know what he had in mind this morning. Ludovic is responsible for the death of Zouma’s kid brother. Maybe that’s why Zouma killed Grégory . . . to hurt Ludovic, as Zouma himself had been hurt.”

  That theory made the most sense to Verlaque, but he said nothing.

  Paulik finished his espresso and looked at his watch. Verlaque said, “You can go if you want. I can finish talking to Mamadou.”

  “Léa has a recital in half an hour,” Paulik said. “Do you mind?”

  “No, not at all,” Verlaque replied. “I’ll fill you in tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” Paulik said. He began to walk toward the door but then turned around and asked, “Why is Ludovic de Castelbajac pressing charges? After what Mamadou just told us, Ludovic is in plenty of hot water himself. Wouldn’t he want to keep what happened out there on the seas a secret? Mamadou’s story makes the captain look like a monster.”

  “If it’s true,” Roussel said.

  “Ludovic is afraid,” Verlaque began.

  “Voilà!” Roussel cut in. “He’s terrified of Mamadou Zouma.”

  “What I was going to say,” Verlaque said, trying to stay calm, “was that if Mamadou gets charged for murder, who would believe his story about the ship? Ludovic’s cruelty out at sea would get swept under the rug.” He paused and then thought of a way to irritate Roussel even more. “Or is Ludovic the murderer? Accuse a poor African dishwasher and hope that the magistrate is impressed by your career and nobility.”