The Curse of La Fontaine

by M. L. Longworth

  “Who would have?” he asked.

  “Grégory’s mentor,” she said. “I don’t know who it was. But Grégory told me on the day of our grandmother’s funeral that the mentor was threatening to expose him.”

  “Expose his homosexuality?”

  “That, yes, which you can imagine wouldn’t go down too well with our family.”

  “In this day and age?”

  “You don’t know my aunt and uncle, or my cousins, especially Ludovic and Philippe. But this person also told Grégory that he or she would reveal who he was selling pot to, and he freaked out. It was a side business of his, let’s just say. Then Grégory, in all his wisdom, threatened back, saying he would expose their stupid plan to try to blow up the next ANF meeting. Thank God that plan didn’t work, but the mentor was furious at Grégory’s threat. The last time I saw him he gave me an envelope and told me that if anything ever happened to him, I should take it to the police.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Verlaque asked, trying to control his temper.

  “I freaked out,” she said. “It took me two days to find it again, and the morning that you came to Avignon I finally had enough courage to look inside.”

  “And?”

  “They’re negatives,” she answered. “I held them up to the light. I can’t really make them out.”

  “Are they of people?” he asked. He thought that perhaps Grégory had been bribing someone.

  “No, some kind of landscapes.”

  “Landscapes? We need to see those negatives,” he replied. “As soon as possible.”

  “I want to stay here—”

  Verlaque tried to remain calm. “Then mail them special delivery to me. I’ll pay at this end when I receive them. Do you have any idea who this mysterious mentor was?”

  “No, but Grégory accidentally once mumbled a nickname, or a code name, or whatever you want to call it. He was a bit stoned.”

  “And?”

  Her voice became muffled on the other end.

  “I didn’t make that out,” Verlaque said, trying to stay calm.

  “Sorry, I’m walking on the bluffs,” she replied. “Goldman, Grégory said. At least that’s what it sounded like. Goldman.”

  Verlaque thanked Juliette and hung up, but his phone rang again before he had the chance to put it back in his pocket. He saw that it was Jean-Marc. “Salut, Jean-Marc,” he said. “Is it quick? I don’t mean to be rude.”

  “Free for lunch tomorrow?” Jean-Marc asked.

  “Yes, thanks. Where?”

  “At my apartment,” Jean-Marc answered. “I’ve invited my mother over; I thought it was about time you two met. You’ll like her. My dad’s off with some old dentist friends, hiking, reliving their medical-school days.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Verlaque said.

  “Good, come at noon.”

  Verlaque hung up and ran up the stairs. When he got to his floor, Mme Girard wasn’t around, so he put the basket of strawberries on her desk. He saw Bruno Paulik and Jules Schoelcher in a corner, talking, and he called them over. “Juliette de Castelbajac just called me. Goldman is who we’re looking for,” he said. “I don’t think Bear or Mamadou were involved in Grégory’s death.”

  “We don’t, either,” Paulik said.

  “Goldman?” Jules asked.

  “Yeah,” Verlaque said. “What does it mean to you?”

  “In English, it could be a rich man,” Jules suggested. “A man of gold.”

  Paulik looked puzzled.

  “Un homme d’or,” Jules explained.

  “Who is Goldman exactly?” Paulik asked.

  “Grégory de Castelbajac’s partner in crime,” Verlaque said. “Goldman was his code name. A rich man . . .”

  Paulik snapped his fingers. “The Duke de Pradet.”

  “Motive?” Jules asked.

  “Juliette said that Grégory was threatening to expose Goldman and their plan to blow up the next royalist meeting,” Verlaque said.

  “The duke a radical?” Jules asked.

  “Maybe he’s good at hiding his real beliefs,” Paulik said. “Besides, he wouldn’t be the first noble or rich man to become radicalized, to give it all up.”

  Verlaque ran his hand through his hair. “He seems so thoroughly old-fashioned and decent to me,” he said.

  “I thought you didn’t entirely trust the answers he gave you the first time you met.”

  “I know him better now. Besides, if he were a radical, we would have seen signs of that. He still lives in relative opulence and has properties in Paris and Burgundy. He doesn’t belong to the ANF anymore, okay, but he’s hardly an anarchist.”

  “Then he could be protecting his late wife,” Jules said. “Did she kill Grégory?”

  “Now that sounds more plausible,” Verlaque said. “She was an extreme royalist. She could have overheard their plan. And then she and Grégory would have argued. The duke would want to cover up the murder to protect her good name. Plus Grégory was buried in a shallow grave. That’s always suggested two things to me: a woman or an old man.”

  “In this case, perhaps both of them,” Paulik said. “We’ll do a background check on Marguerite and the ANF. Jules, can you do a search for us?”

  “No problem,” Jules said, sitting down at his desk and pulling the computer’s mouse toward him.

  “Juliette has a bunch of negatives that Grégory left in her care,” Verlaque said.

  “What are they of?” Paulik asked.

  “She can’t quite make them out. Landscapes, she thought.”

  Paulik narrowed his eyes. “Was Grégory going to blackmail Goldman? What could landscapes have to do with it?”

  “A real estate deal gone sour?” Jules asked, looking up from the computer.

  “Pot plants,” Verlaque suggested. “Was Grégory’s dope on Goldman’s property?” Could the duke have fields of pot behind his Burgundian manor house? It seemed very unlikely. “Let’s go into my office, Bruno,” he said. “We need to figure out what to do with Mamadou and Bear. Gracefully.”

  “And quietly,” Paulik added, having seen the headline on the front page of La Provence that morning: JUDGE ANTOINE VERLAQUE ADMITS MISTAKE IN KÉVIN MALONGO VERDICT.

  • • •

  “Gather around me as close as you can,” Gaëlle hollered over the wind. “Because of the traffic we’ll look at that fountain in front of us from the safety of this sidewalk.” The tourists turned their heads toward the Cours Mirabeau—save for one, who had, from the beginning of the tour, been playing with his camera. These thirteen retirees had come on a hired bus from their small market town in the interior of Brittany; the other half of their group was now somewhere near Aix’s cathedral, guided by Anthony Sauze. Gaëlle liked doing the historical walking tours. She closed her shop earlier than usual—in the late morning—and carried on the tours over her lunch break when the shop was closed. She sometimes earned more money from the tours than she did from selling knickknacks or tablecloths.

  “It’s called Nine Cannons,” she explained, “not because there were ever any cannons here, but after its nine water spouts. As you can see the fountain has an especially low basin compared to the other fountains we’ve seen in Aix. Any reason why?”

  A white-haired, bespectacled woman whom Gaëlle had pegged as a retired nurse or schoolteacher politely raised her hand. “For horses?” she asked. “To drink from.”

  “Ah, very close,” Gaëlle answered, smiling. “For sheep, actually. The sheep were led here in late spring all the way from Arles, to begin their summer transhumance in the mountains around Aix. The right for the Arlesian shepherds to use Nine Cannons dates back to the twelfth century.”

  The cameraman busily snapped photographs and Gaëlle continued. “I like to begin this section of the tour, focused on World War II in Aix, with the Nine Cann
ons. If you look at the road, you will see two rows of embedded stones around the fountain.” The group strained their heads and some nodded in confirmation. “Good,” she said. “The stones mark the position of the original basin, which for years had been chipped away by passing cars and trucks because of its low height. The final damage was done one glorious day in Aix, the sixteenth of August 1944, and after that the basin was permenantly remodified.” She looked at her tour group and waited.

  “The Allies coming into town!” shouted an elderly man who wore a striped bow tie.

  “Exactly!” Gaëlle said. “One of their tanks plowed right over one of the wings of the basin. But nobody minded.”

  “I should think not,” a woman said. “The fountain must have seen worse.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Gaëlle confirmed, thinking of her own nameless fountain. If only it could speak. It had seen so much; she hoped more joy than sorrow. “Let’s walk up to the hôtel particulier at number 38.” She led the group up the Cours, careful to point out interesting architectural features or warning when there were loose cobblestones or dog feces. She found herself thinking of Grégory de Castelbajac, as she had been doing more and more of lately. The fountain knew who Grégory’s murderer was. She shuddered and tightened the silk scarf around her neck. Did they really need to know who was responsible, eight years later? Would that change anything?

  “Here we are,” Gaëlle said, stopping at the front doors, above which was a balcony that appeared to be held up by two bearded men. “Any ideas what these stone male sculptures are called?”

  “Atlantes,” the schoolteacher/nurse answered.

  “Exactly,” Gaëlle said. “Some people say that these two guys are the only people in Aix doing any work.”

  Her group loved the joke and a man hollered, “C’est le sud!”

  “The hôtel was built in 1650 for Pierre Maurel, and thanks to the Atlantes is one of the most photographed buildings in Aix.” Her photographer began clicking, on cue. She continued. “Maurel began life as a humble cloth trader, but after three marriages, each one increasing his wealth, he was able to buy one of these empty plots on the newly constructed and very desirable avenue. Not only did he build a beautiful house and garden, he also gave himself a title, making himself Pierre Maurel de Pontèves, and Pontèves is how the building is now known. Pierre Maurel was still alive during Louis XIV’s visit to Aix in 1660, and must have been over the moon to host the king’s cousin, Anne-Marie de Montpensier.” A few of her group caught her sarcasm and snorted. “When Maurel died in 1672 he left more than two million pounds to his eight children. You can imagine how much money that would be today. A century later the house was taken over during the French Revolution, when it was used as the district’s Criminal Tribunal. These statues behind me must have inspired dread upon those unlucky people getting dragged in here during that time. At least the revolutionaries didn’t deface the façade’s sculptures, as they so stupidly did in so many other places in France.” Gaëlle paused, realizing her pro-monarchy, pro-nobility stance was probably a little too obvious. She should have said “thoughtlessly” instead of “stupidly.” She quickly went on. “But our story doesn’t end here, as the house once again had . . . unwelcomed inhabitants . . . the Gestapo, who used it from 1942 to 1944 as their headquarters.”

  “Were there many Germans here?” a woman asked.

  Gaëlle nodded. She liked that some people were curious and paying attention. “German and Italian soldiers; more than ten thousand were stationed here. The Hotel du Roi René was used for the top ranks, this one for the Gestapo, the former Office of Tourisme for the police . . . good thing there weren’t any tourists! . . . and the Lycée Mignet, the high school of both Cézanne and Zola, was used for storing munitions.”

  “Et les soldats Aixois?” the old man with the bow tie asked.

  “Before the invasion there were almost two thousand French officers stationed here, who either joined the Resistance or the forces gathering in Africa. Of them, three hundred and eighty-five died in battle, including eleven of their teachers from the École Militaire. Two of the Resistance fighters, brothers, were killed in the garden behind my shop. Let’s head that way now.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Gabriella de La Serna

  V erlaque paused on the steps leading down out of the Palais de Justice and speed-dialed Marine’s number. “Oui, Antoine?” she answered, whispering.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, letting himself out the front door. “Are you at lunch?”

  “Actually, I’m in the restaurant restroom,” Marine replied. “So go ahead.”

  “Goldman. Is there any historical importance to that name?”

  “Radical philosopher,” Marine answered.

  “He was?” Verlaque asked, now running down the steps.

  “She was,” Marine replied. “Emma Goldman.”

  “You’re a genuis.”

  Marine laughed. “Because I know of Emma Goldman? She was an anarchist, but also an early champion of women’s rights. It’s a name everyone should be familiar with. She also—”

  “Thank you, my dear,” Verlaque said, in too much of a hurry for one of Marine’s lectures.

  “Why are you asking me this?”

  “Goldman is the code name of someone highly influential in Grégory de Castelbajac’s life. They were going to try to assassinate someone at an ANF meeting and then they had a falling-out, threatening to expose each other for various reasons. Good motive for murder.”

  “That’s interesting, because Emma Goldman once tried—”

  “Thank you!”

  “Antoine! If you hang up you’ll be sorry!”

  He walked toward the Passage Agard, not sure where he was going, only thinking he would look for somewhere to eat. “What, then?”

  “Emma Goldman, and her longtime partner, whose name I’ve forgotten . . .”

  Verlaque smiled. He knew how much it irriated Marine to forget a name or date.

  She went on. “There’s a connection here. They also tried to assassinate someone. Frick. I think his full name was Henry Clay Frick.”

  “Frick? As in the museum?” Verlaque asked.

  “Yes, as in your favorite New York museum.”

  “Thank you once again,” Verlaque said. He stopped in the passage and looked at some color real estate listings that were posted behind glass. The country houses were large and luxurious, with pools and formal gardens. He had been thinking more and more about their two apartments, and more and more about the upcoming hot weather and how nice it would be to have a swimming pool, some olive trees, and even a couple of rows of vines. “I’ll see you tonight.” He hung up, thinking of the assassination connection. Who was their Henry Clay Frick? He called Marine back.

  “Merde, Antoine!” Marine answered.

  “One last question,” Verlaque said. “Who do you see at the ANF as being a potential bomb target? Someone hated . . .”

  “I was only there once,” she answered, leaning against the sinks. “I won’t ask you who you have in mind as Goldman.”

  “Thank you.” He frowned, realizing that the duke was the furthest thing from a revolutionary he could imagine, as his noble status was still very much intact. This made Marguerite more likely the murderer. A crime of passion, after an argument with the radical Grégory.

  Marine continued. “If I were angry at someone at the ANF, it would be the member who researches the validity of families’ claims to nobility. That’s a nasty task. And for the recipient . . . Can you imagine waking up one day and your familiy is no longer titled? So Goldman might be someone who was disgraced and is looking for vengeance.”

  “Of course,” Verlaque quickly said. This was another track that he would have to follow. “When you were at the ANF meeting, you mentioned that they went through a list of families who had recently had their status taken away.”
>
  “Yes.”

  “Who announced it?” he asked. “Does someone in particular do the research?”

  “At that meeting it was Charles de Saint-Félix.”

  • • •

  Verlaque ate some tempura and sushi on the rue d’Italie, not because he was in the mood for Japanese food but because from the restaurant’s window he had a view of the Duke de Pradet’s front door. He had only partly agreed with Marine’s opinion; after all, she’d been to only one meeting. Perhaps the members fought all the time among themselves, and the duke, or even Marguerite, hated one of them. But no one came or went from the duke’s home as Verlaque ate. He wasn’t surprised; it would have been a long shot had he seen some kind of sign of the duke’s guilt, and Marguerite was long dead. He only saw Père Jean-Luc, hurrying up the street carrying a gym bag, looking around as if he had just robbed a bank. Verlaque chuckled; perhaps the overweight priest was embarrassed to be seen coming back from the gym? Verlaque paid the bill and left. As he walked up the street, he dialed Paulik. “I got your message as I was finishing lunch,” he said when Paulik answered. “Where should I be going?”

  “Ici,” Paulik replied. “Palais de Justice. Vite.”

  Verlaque walked quickly. When he got there, he once again ran up the stairs to his office. “I’m going to eat a huge steak tonight,” he said as he stuck his head in Paulik’s office. “All I’ve been doing today is walking and running, and I had Japanese for lunch.”

  Paulik laughed. “Let’s go to your office,” he said. “You have the espresso maker.”

  “What’s up? You said it was urgent.”

  “That Italian photographer called back. His Argentinean girlfriend wants to talk to us, but she wants to speak in English.”

  “Doesn’t anyone here speak Spanish? What’s the urgency?”

  Paulik said, “She wanted to speak to you or me, and I don’t speak either language. I always knew I should have paid attention in English class. She’s a supermodel. Are you ready? Gabriella de la Serna.”

  Verlaque stopped. “Gabriella de la Serna?” He opened his office door and let Paulik pass in before him. “Wow. Well, then, sorry, I’ll have to speak to her. But why didn’t she call earlier?”