The Curse of La Fontaine

by M. L. Longworth

  “She was away on a shoot. In Alaska.”

  “As one would be,” Verlaque said. He sat down and Paulik handed him a piece of paper. Verlaque put on his reading glasses and dialed the phone number that Paulik had written down, putting the phone on speaker. She answered in three rings.

  “This is Gabriella.”

  “Um, hello, this is Antoine Verlaque,” he began, clearing his throat. “I’m the examining magistrate in Aix-en-Provence. Can you hear me all right?”

  Paulik grinned, seeing that his boss was nervous, and Verlaque waved the back of his hand at the commissioner.

  “Yes, of course,” she replied. “My name is Gabriella de la Serna. I’m Federico Renzi’s girlfriend.”

  “Yes, we spoke to Monsieur Renzi. Do you have information on Grégory de Castelbajac?”

  “Oh, poor dear Grégo,” she began. “Yes, I may be of some help. He was so sweet. We’re all devastated here.”

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Just before Grégory went back to France, I think for a funeral . . . he spoke to me about his family. He was excitd to go back to Provence and said that he had some . . . how do you say it? . . . unfinished business with one of his brothers.”

  Verlaque’s back went rigid and he picked up a pencil and a pad of paper.

  “I don’t know his name, but he was a ship captain,” she continued. “And Grégory, being the ecologist that he was, had information about the brother’s ship . . . things they were doing on board . . .”

  “Do you remember the name of the ship?”

  “Oh yes. The Esmérelda,” she replied. “I’m a big Victor Hugo fan.”

  “What were they doing on board?”

  “Grégo didn’t go into details,” she said, “but he did say they were doing inhumane things, including dumping oil sludge into the sea. Grégory said that all the big freighters did that, but Grégory had proof of the Esmérelda’s bad deeds. He was going to see his brother and challenge him on it. I told him it was a mistake, that he should talk to the . . . I forget the name . . .”

  “Les douanes,” Verlaque said. “Sorry. Coast Guard.”

  “Exactly,” Gabriella replied. “Federico thought so, too.”

  “You were right to say so,” Verlaque said.

  “I’m afraid that’s all,” Gabriella said. “But Federico and I thought it might be important.”

  “I can’t thank you enough. I know how busy you are—”

  Paulik smirked and Verlaque smiled, waving his hand again. “One last question.” He stopped himself from saying “I’ve always wanted to know.” “Are you by any chance related to Che Guevara?”

  “Third cousins,” she replied. “Not many people know that Ernesto was a de la Serna.”

  “Well, thank you once again,” Verlaque said. “Would you be willing to testify and tell a court what you’ve just told us?”

  She hesitated. “Yes, if it helps catch whoever killed Grégo. Yes.”

  Verlaque hung up and Paulik said, “If she comes to Aix she can stay at my place.”

  “Shut up,” Verlaque said, laughing.

  • • •

  Gaëlle looked at her watch and tried to speed things up. They were late for their lunch, booked at a mediocre but friendly restaurant on the rue Fernand Dol that was used to hosting big groups. “This is Aix’s oldest free-standing statue, which was built in 1667 by the Archbishop Michel Mazarin,” she said. “Orignally, this spot was to have a statue of the archbishop’s brother, but luckily the priest died before the statue was begun and we were instead given this wonderfully playful Baroque fountain, called, for obvious reasons, Les Quatre Dauphins.” She paused so the tourists could take photographs of one another in front of the four fat dolphins spewing water. “This is quintessential Aix,” she continued. “It’s my favorite part of the city, and why I chose to live and work here. In the fall the square’s four giant trees drop their chestnuts, children come and go from the local schools, and in summer there are impromptu concerts. And the vistas in each direction are fabulous. If you look up the rue Cardinale, you’ll see the early Gothic church Saint-Jean de Malte, which was already here when Archbishop Mazarin hired the architect Jean Lombard to redesign this former church land into a new chic neighborhood, one that he hoped would rival Paris.”

  “It’s nicer than Paris,” someone said. Gaëlle smiled, all too aware of the provincial dislike of the capital. She loved Paris.

  “Is the water good?” another asked.

  “Oh yes,” Gaëlle answered. “Although a new fountain in this neighborhood wasn’t entirely necessary as most of the homes had fountains in their gardens, or even one in the entrance hall, which was the latest in chic design.”

  “Will we see your fountain?” the same woman asked. “Where the résistants were killed by the Germans?”

  “By the Nazis,” Gaëlle corrected. “No, we can’t, as the garden is private and shared among many neighbors. And besides, the police have the area around the fountain cordoned off . . .”

  The group leaned forward, and even the photographer stopped looking at the photographs he had taken that day. Gaëlle regretted her slip of the tongue, but in minutes they would be walking by La Fontaine on their way to lunch and then the group would surely see the police crime-scene tape that closed off the restaurant. Gaëlle motioned for them to come closer. “A skeleton was recently discovered in the garden,” she quickly said. She might as well give them good value. “It was buried eight years ago and sadly has been identified as a local young man. And now the fountain has stopped running.”

  A few of the tourists gasped. “Did it stop running during the war?” the schoolteacher asked. “When the résistants were murdered?”

  Gaëlle did not speak but simply nodded up and down for extra-dramatic effect.

  “It’s cursed!” the old man cried.

  “Exactement,” Gaëlle said.

  “Did you know the young man?” one of the younger men—at least a few years under sixty—asked.

  Gaëlle nodded. “I did.” The tourists blinked, and a few whispered their condolences. She thought of Grégory, and of Béatrice Germain’s brothers, and of Valère the peasant who had refused to bow before Louis XIV. Four young men, their lives cut short, in the same garden, and all were violent deaths. She saw the old man with the bow tie rub his stomach and look at his watch. “Oh my, we’re late for lunch,” she said, relieved to be interrupted. “The restaurant is just around the corner; let’s move on.”

  • • •

  “What in the world was she thinking?” Verlaque asked. He and Paulik were walking side by side down a hall on the way to the room where Ludovic de Castelbajac sat waiting. “Calling Castelbajac and accusing him of who knows what. So naïve.”

  “We’re so lucky he didn’t skip town,” Paulik replied.

  “And lucky he didn’t go after her,” Verlaque said. “I had specifically asked Juliette to courier me the negatives.”

  “It figures that one-hour photo places still exist in Brittany. I understand her shock when she saw that the photographs were not of landscapes but seascapes, but still—”

  “Here we are,” Verlaque said as they stopped in front of a door. “After you.”

  Ludovic de Castelbajac sat at a table with his arms crossed across his chest. He looked out of the window, but Verlaque wasn’t entirely sure if he was taking in the view across the rooftops of Aix. He turned his head as the judge and the commissioner said hello. “Most people go gaga for these red-tile roofs,” Castelbajac said. “Apartment owners do anything to build terraces on their rooftops, just to get a view of them. But it’s nothing compared to the view of the water and sky when you’ve been out at sea for days or weeks.”

  Verlaque and Paulik sat down and let the sea captain continue speaking. “I knew after Juliette called me that you would find out about the
Esmérelda,” he said. “I almost came here on my own.”

  “But we still had to pick you up at your apartment,” Paulik said. “So it’s a little hard to believe you.”

  “Grégory threatened to reveal what was going on on the Esmérelda,” Verlaque said. He didn’t point out the irony that Ludovic had been illegally polluting the beautiful sea that he had just been waxing on about, never mind tossing stowaways out to sea. “What happened between you the last time you saw each other?”

  Castelbajac looked surprised. “Now wait a minute—”

  “You were in Aix, and not out at sea, when Grégory died,” Verlaque began. “For your grandmother’s funeral.”

  “Of course. I saw Grégo the night before her funeral,” Castelbajac said. “Then the next morning at the funeral, but not after. The last time I saw him was outside the church on August eighth.”

  “Then the night before the funeral,” Verlaque said. “What went on between you two?”

  “Grégory was stoned, and laughing,” Castelbajac began. “We were upstairs at my place, and he told me some photographer friend of his had photographs of my ship out at sea—”

  “Dumping oil?” Paulik asked.

  Castelbajac nodded.

  “Why is Juliette so upset?” Verlaque asked. “She took a big risk in calling you.”

  Ludovic de Castelbajac threw his hands up in the air. “Juliette’s a nut and always has been! She actually accused me of murdering Grégo! Can you imagine such a thing?” His eyes watered and reddened and he looked from Verlaque to Paulik.

  “Does the name Goldman mean anything to you?” Paulik asked.

  Castelbajac tilted his head back and laughed. “Not that again! Grégory mentioned him once or twice. His mentor. What a farce. I think that Grégory actually believed at times that he was some kind of revolutionary.”

  “Do you know who Goldman could be?” Verlaque asked.

  “Of course not. Goldman may not even exist,” Castelbajac said. He pointed to his forehead. “Grégory had a very vivid imagination.”

  Verlaque resisted the temptation to look over at Paulik. The fact that Goldman might be an invented character had never entered his head.

  “Did Grégory mention Goldman that night before the funeral?” Verlaque asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Castelbajac replied. “He was in better spirits than usual, before he started taunting me with the photographs and what he thought were the rules at sea.”

  “Let’s talk about what happened out at sea,” Verlaque said. “And Mamadou Zouma.”

  Castelbajac hung his head. “I’m guilty of everything he probably told you.” He looked up and said, “I’m not the only sea captain who puts stowaways out at sea. We don’t have many options—”

  “Why did you accuse him of murdering Grégory?” Paulik asked.

  “It seems logical to me!” Castelbajac said, his voice rising. “He thought that I was responsible for the death of his brother. So he kills mine!”

  “Do you really think that’s possible?” Verlaque asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know!”

  “So who did kill Grégory?” Verlaque went on.

  “I would never kill my own brother, if that’s what you’re getting at!” the ship captain yelled. He took a breath and tried to calm himself down. “I was in Sanary immediately after the funeral. You can ask my brothers. We all waited for Grégo to show up, but he didn’t, of course. I stayed there with them for two days, and on the third day we gave up, assuming that Grégo had split. We went on a sailing trip to Italy that we had planned as a family. Grand-mère had left us money for it. I didn’t even need to go back to Aix; I had brought everything with me for the sailing trip.”

  Verlaque stayed silent. Castelbajac could have snuck out in the middle of the night and driven back to Aix. It was only an hour’s drive.

  “We’ll check your story with your brothers and parents,” Paulik said. “In the meantime, some members of the International Oceanographic Commission will be coming here, and they want you to answer some questions.”

  Castelbajac hung his head again and rubbed his eyes. “I figured so, and I’m willing to cooperate. But you must believe me that I never touched my brother. Ever.”

  • • •

  The next day at 12:30 Verlaque arrived on the rue Papassaudi. He ran up the stairs, disconcerted that he was late for lunch as his morning meetings had all gone overtime. When he walked into the living room, an older female version of Jean-Marc Sauvat was sitting in an armchair with a glass of white wine in her hand. She got up and Verlaque saw that the woman was tall and slim like Jean-Marc, with his broad shoulders. She had puffy eyelids that, like her son’s, were not ugly but dramatic. Her high cheekbones were what his grandmother Emmeline always referred to as aristocratic. She smiled as she shook his hand. “Antoine,” she said, “I’m so pleased to finally meet you. I’m Anne Sauvat.”

  “Lovely to meet you,” Verlaque answered. He liked her deep, husky voice.

  “Antoine, help yourself to a glass of wine,” Jean-Marc called from the kitchen. “The first course is almost up! Asparagus in vinaigrette. I hope you aren’t tired of asparagus!”

  “Definitely not,” Verlaque replied.

  “When we were children we’d pick wild asparagus on the side of the road,” Mme Sauvat said. “My mother would scold us. She didn’t like the neighbors seeing us gathering food like that.”

  “Nobles didn’t do such things?” Jean-Marc asked, coming into the room carrying an antique oblong platter full of bundles of asparagus that were tied together with thin strips of blanched leek leaves. “À table!” he said.

  “Certainly not,” Mme Sauvat replied, walking toward the table. “She didn’t mind us foraging in the fields behind the house, but it was the roadside that had the most asparagus.”

  “Maman, you can sit at the head of the table,” Jean-Marc said, “and we’ll be on either side of you.”

  Verlaque took the white wine off the coffee table and topped up their glasses. It was comforting to him that he could be so relaxed at Jean-Marc’s and, much to his own surprise, he said so. Jean-Marc looked at Verlaque with a look of shock but quickly wiped that expression off his face.

  “What a nice reflection, Antoine,” Mme Sauvat said, sitting down and putting the ironed white napkin on her lap. “Friends are hard to make and hard to keep,” she went on. “I don’t mean difficult as in tricky, but more in the sense of it being time-consuming. It takes work and effort.”

  “And it’s so worth it,” Jean-Marc said. “Take a bundle of asparagus, Maman.”

  “I lost friends when I married your father,” she said, putting a bundle on her plate then passing the asparagus to Verlaque.

  “That’s a shame,” Verlaque said.

  “Well, if that was the case, they weren’t worth keeping,” Jean-Marc said.

  “All the same, it hurt.” Mme Sauvat looked at Verlaque and said, “I was born Anne d’Estève de Bosch.”

  “Yes, Jean-Marc only recently told me.”

  “But what I did was a choice,” she continued, setting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “For some nobles, it can be much harder.”

  “What do you mean, Maman?” Jean-Marc asked. He motioned for Antoine to begin eating, seeing that his mother was now reminiscing.

  “The families who had their nobility taken away,” she said, picking up her knife and fork, only to set them down again.

  “Nineteenth-century forgers?” Jean-Marc asked. “You can’t feel that sorry for them.”

  “But imagine finding out that your whole way of life is a sham,” she said. “It drove one of our local counts to the madhouse. His wife died penniless, after having to sell off pieces of their property. It’s happened to many families . . . a family here, too. The father committed suicide and his wife died soon af
ter. Their children never recovered, and the daughter in particular is still very bitter to this day. I’ve heard she’s a radical—at least she was. There, I’ve said too much.”

  Verlaque thought of the conversation he had had with Marine, when he had been drooling over real estate ads posted in the Passage Agard. Marine’s words came back to him: Can you imagine waking up one day and your familiy is no longer titled?

  Jean-Marc laughed, winking at Verlaque. “Don’t worry, Maman, that’s not our circle.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t know her, you’re right,” Mme Sauvat said, taking a sip of wine. “Neither of you have children.”

  “I meant posh nobles. Where does having children come into it? Is this person a nanny?” Jean-Marc teased. “Or a kindergarten teacher?”

  “No, she teaches teenagers, I believe,” she answered, cutting her asparagus. “High school.”

  “Excuse me,” Verlaque said, getting up from the table. “I have to go. I’m so sorry.”

  • • •

  He walked down the rue du 4 Septembre until he got to the dolphin fountain and then turned left on Cardinale. At rue Mistral he turned left again and rang the bell at number 22. While he waited, he texted Paulik.

  Bénédicte Tivolle opened the door. “Hello,” she said. “I’m just about to leave to teach this afternoon. Will it be quick?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Verlaque said. “I need to question you further regarding your part in the murder of Grégory de Castelbajac.” He saw some of the color drain from her face.

  “You’d better come in, then,” she said, standing aside.

  • • •

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Bénédicte Tivolle said as she sat across from Verlaque in her surprisingly small kitchen. She called her school to cancel classes and had made them coffee.

  Verlaque said, “You must know why I’m here. You’re Goldman.”

  “Ah,” she said, turning around from the espresso maker. “How did you find out?”