The Curse of La Fontaine

by M. L. Longworth

  “It doesn’t matter,” he answered. “You didn’t teach Grégory, but you tutored him, right?”

  Bénédicte nodded.

  “Both his brothers and friends told me he had tutors, but I didn’t make the connection at first, until I found out that your code name when with Grégory was Goldman.”

  Bénédicte sat down, handing him a coffee, the sugar bowl, and a spoon. “Emma Goldman was an underrated political thinker.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  She went on. “Goldman was ahead of her time. She wrote and lectured on such a wide variety of issues, ones that we take for granted today, at least in the West. She wrote in favor of prison reform, atheism, freedom of speech, free love, women’s suffrage, and homosexuality. She encouraged American men not to sign up for war in 1917 and was deported back to her native Russia for it.”

  “In 1917?”

  “Yes, not a convenient time to be back in Russia.”

  “Did you threaten Grégory?” Verlaque asked.

  Bénédicte stirred sugar into her coffee. “Yes, and I regret it. I was so angry . . .”

  “At Charles de Saint-Félix?”

  “You’ve done your research,” she said, her eyebrows raised. “Yes, Saint-Félix did the poking around in records that allowed the ANF to take away my family’s title. He’s a little weasel, and for years I held him responsible for my father’s suicide. Are your parents still alive, Judge?”

  “My father is,” Verlaque replied. “But my mother is dead. She, too, committed suicide.”

  “With a hunting rifle like my father?”

  “No,” he replied. “She starved herself. Anorexia.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said with earnestness, much to his surprise.

  “So you and Grégory planned to kill Saint-Félix?” he said, changing the subject.

  “Yes,” she said clearly and even a little loudly. “As you know it didn’t work. You can arrest me for that, if you have the proof, which you don’t. But you can’t arrest me for Grégory’s murder. He disappointed me at the time, and I was so angry that I threatened to expose him—”

  “For his homosexuality,” Verlaque said. “Which your Emma Goldman defended, at the turn of the last century. And you threatened to expose his drug selling as well. Whom did he sell to?”

  “He would never tell me,” she said. “I pretended that I found out, but I was bluffing. He did say it was for a good cause.” She laughed slightly and rubbed her eyes.

  “Did you have an argument eight years ago?” Verlaque asked. “Here? Or outside, in the garden? It was summer; you must have been out there. Grégory threatened to expose you and you pushed him.”

  She looked at him and her eyes narrowed. She leaned over the kitchen table and said, “You have no proof. There was a skeleton found in the garden and that’s all—”

  A door opened on the floor above, and Bénédicte turned her head slightly, but they both ignored it. Verlaque answered, “Our pathologist has made a new discovery.” He tried staring down the philosophy teacher, in the hopes that his lie would have some effect. He, too, could bluff.

  Instead she laughed. “A discovery, with bones buried eight years ago?”

  Her comment made Verlaque think of the Paulik boys and their search for the farmer’s bones in the Luberon woods. Like magic, a text came in from Paulik, causing Verlaque’s cell phone to vibrate against the wooden table. He picked it up, read the message, and then said aloud, “The pathologist with more news.”

  “You liar!” Bénédicte hissed. “You can’t link me to Grégory’s murder.”

  “But I can.” A tall man stood in the doorway of the kitchen, his hands grasping each side of the doorframe. Bénédicte swung around and looked at him. “Don’t be a fool, Serge,” she said.

  “We can’t lie anymore,” Serge Tivolle said. He stayed in the doorway as if he were unable to walk into the kitchen.

  Verlaque looked at him, surprised by his movie-star good looks—thick graying hair and a wide smile with perfect teeth, and tall. He had imagined Bénédicte’s husband to be a small, somewhat ugly man.

  Bénédicte got up from the table and Verlaque quickly did the same. “Serge, there’s no proof, and you know that,” she said, moving toward him.

  “I’m the proof, Bénédicte,” he answered, moving slightly back into the dining room. “I came home early . . .” He looked at Verlaque, his eyes pleading and apologetic. “I was supposed to return the next day from dropping the kids off at their grandparents’, but I had some drawings to finish.”

  “Yes, and of course you had to race home to do them in the middle of the night, you—” Bénédicte said, raising her arms.

  “Mme Tivolle,” Verlaque said, reaching for her. “Please, let’s sit back down.”

  She swung around and Verlaque felt a sting across his left cheek. Stunned, he reached up and felt the heat on his face. Lurching toward her, Serge Tivolle picked his wife up by the shoulders and set her down in a chair. Verlaque grabbed his cell phone and sent a text message to Paulik: “Come ASAP.”

  “I’m not afraid of you anymore,” Serge said as he stared into his wife’s eyes. “We have to tell the truth now. You killed Grégory de Castelbajac and buried him, and I said nothing.”

  “He fell!” she cried out.

  Serge said, “Yes, but then he died in front of you and you did nothing—”

  Bénédicte’s head dropped toward the table and at the last minute Serge protected her fall with his right forearm. “It’s over,” he said, putting his left arm around her back. “It wasn’t your fault that Grégory hit his head on the fountain, but you should have called an ambulance.”

  Verlaque watched Serge Tivolle, trying to fill in the blanks. It seemed from what he had just heard that Dr. Cohen’s hyphosis that the murderer watched Grégory die had been correct. Minutes later the doorbell rang and Verlaque got up to answer it. Bénédicte was now weeping, repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The Curse of La Fontaine

  I was hoping for meat and potatoes,” Verlaque said, staring at his plate. Marine set her knife and fork down and he smiled. “I’m joking. I’m grateful for this, even if it’s fish.”

  “Salmon is good for us,” Marine said, pouring her husband a glass of wine, “and you went to all that trouble the other night to get Jean-Pierre Michel’s wine out of the cellar.”

  “You’re teasing me,” Verlaque said, swirling Michel’s golden-colored Chardonnay around in his glass. He smelled it, then took a sip and closed his eyes. “Burgundy.”

  “The problem with us is that we love too many places,” Marine said, putting her glass to her nose. “Italy, Burgundy . . .”

  “Lisbon.”

  “Dublin.”

  “We need a hundred lives so that we can live in each place,” he said.

  “Or different jobs,” Marine said. “How are you feeling, anyway? You must be so relieved to have the Castelbajac murder wrapped up.”

  “I am,” Verlaque replied. “Bénédicte Tivolle was formally arrested today.”

  “And her husband?” she asked, taking a bite of the salmon that she had steamed and then sauced with a warm vinaigrette made from olive oil, lemon juice, capers, and olives.

  “He’ll get a lesser sentence, but yes, he, too, was arrested.”

  Marine shuddered. “The children—”

  “I suppose they’ll live with grandparents, or cousins. I have a hard time thinking of that.”

  Marine’s eyes watered and he reached across the table and took her hand. She asked, “What happened? Did Serge Tivolle come home in the middle of the night?”

  “Yes,” Verlaque answered. “Grégory was already dead, and Bénédicte had just finished burying him.”

  “Why didn’t he help her dig a deeper
grave?”

  “You’re gruesome,” he answered, smiling. “They were both panicked, but I would imagine especially him. He said he couldn’t go near the body . . . If they had called an ambulance or the police, even after Grégory had died, they would be in better shape right now. But they lost their heads.”

  “We should eat before it gets cold,” Marine suddenly said.

  Verlaque nodded. The fish tasted bland to him, and he washed each forkful of salmon down with a swallow of M Michel’s Chardonnay.

  She smiled and poured out more wine. “What kind of proof did Grégory have on the Esmérelda’s illegal practices?” she asked. “You mentioned something to me on the phone after you spoke to that supermodel.”

  Verlaque felt himself blushing and hoped that Marine didn’t notice. She did. “Grégory had photographs taken by a friend—the supermodel’s boyfriend—who was on board the Green Party ship. He took it with a powerful zoom lens. Paulik spoke today with the Esmérelda’s owner, a Greek guy.”

  “Greek? What a surprise,” she said.

  “Well, this guy is an honest shipping magnate. He had been giving Ludovic de Castelbajac money to dispose of the excess oil and sludge legally, in processing plants, but Castelbajac pocketed the money.”

  “Polluting the sea instead.”

  “Castelbajac told the arresting officers that he burned the photographs. Grégory had stupidly showed him the photos on the night he died.”

  “What about the negatives?”

  “On my desk.”

  “What?”

  “Juliette de Castelbajac had them,” he replied. “She’d only just looked closely at them. She told me they were landscapes, but the sea can look like land on a tiny negative. Grégory told Ludovic that the negatives had been lost.”

  “So Ludovic is in trouble,” Marine said.

  “Yes, although not for murder. The Greek tycoon told Paulik he would testify, and we have Mamadou’s testimony as well.”

  “The poor family,” she said. “The more I heard about Grégory, the more I liked him. His heart was in the right place.”

  “I agree. The Duke de Pradet phoned me this afternoon,” Verlaque said. “He’s invited me to tea tomorrow morning.”

  “How proper.”

  “I feel guilty,” Verlaque said. “I suspected him for a while, and his late wife.”

  “At least you didn’t take him in for questioning,” Marine said, laughing. She coughed and then added, “Sorry. Bad joke.”

  “And I didn’t accuse him outright,” he said, “like I did with Bear and Mamadou, and then Ludovic.”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  “Those are big mistakes, mistakes that can ruin people.”

  “Don’t exaggerate.” Marine poured them what was left of the wine. “Well,” she said, “you can make it up to Bear and Mamadou by apologizing. Neither of them seem like the kind of person who would hold a grudge. Hell, they don’t have time for that kind of nonsense. You can tell them tomorrow; we’re invited to have lunch at La Fontaine. Bear would like to thank us for the loan of my apartment.”

  “Oh, so he’s treating us,” Verlaque said. “I should be doing something for him.”

  “Saying sorry is enough. Are you free?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said, finishing the rest of his salmon. He wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. “This was particularly good salmon. Very fine. Thank you.”

  “You’ll sleep better tonight than you would have after eating a steak.”

  Verlaque grunted and managed a smile. “Is there a cheese course?”

  • • •

  The duke had paced around all morning, unable to drink his usual morning coffee. He ate a bit of toast. He tried losing himself in a book and jumped when the front doorbell rang. He heard Manuel speaking with the judge and showing him into the living room. The duke put down his book, carefully using a photograph for a bookmark—he always used photographs to mark the pages he wanted to come back to. He left the library and walked across the tiled hall to the salon.

  “Good morning, Judge Verlaque,” he said, shaking Verlaque’s hand.

  “Good morning,” Verlaque said. “Thank you for the invitation.”

  “It was the least I could do. Manuel has made us some Earl Grey tea, which goes so well with lemon cake,” the duke said, gesturing to the Spode teapot and the cake.

  “My grandmother always said the same thing,” Verlaque said.

  The duke gestured for Verlaque to sit down. Verlaque said to him, “I spoke to you too harshly the last time I was here. I’m sorry. I thought that you were protecting your late wife, that perhaps she had something to do with Grégory de Castelbajac’s death.”

  “I understand why you had your doubts about me and Marguerite,” the duke said. “I should explain a bit. Marguerite and I had grown apart, but we were still living in the same house. She had become so radical . . . the monarchy group, you know. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t be bothered to attend their meetings. Incestuous little bunch.” He set down his teacup and brooded.

  “What was Marguerite planning eight years ago?”

  “Oh, you heard about that?” the duke asked. “Nothing vicious, don’t worry. But it would have been embarrassing for me. For us. We weren’t as well off financially as we appeared to be. Running this place, and the house in Burgundy and the apartment in Paris, was a drain. There were months when we couldn’t pay the co-owner fees on the Paris apartment or the gardener to keep up the lawn in Burgundy.” He leaned forward and whispered, “I could never have fired Manuel. Can you imagine? He’s been with me since he was a teen. One or two of the residences would have to be sold, after having been in the family for generations. I never really figured out how to make money.”

  Verlaque nodded, and the duke continued. “We weren’t the only nobles experiencing this sort of problem. And so Marguerite came up with an option that I completely disagreed with: to open this and the Burgundy house up for public visits.”

  Verlaque realized that Marguerite had probably discussed the issue with Charles de Saint-Félix. In that morning’s La Provence the Saint-Félix château had been on the front page with the caption “Open for visits, starting Saturday.” He had shown Marine the headline and she had replied, “That’s what he and Louis were arguing about, at the ANF meeting.”

  “That makes sense,” he said to the duke. “The National Trust in England does the same thing.”

  The duke shuddered. “Quelle horreur.”

  “So you didn’t have to open any of your homes to visitors?”

  “No,” the duke replied. “Marguerite had an aunt in Germany who died, leaving us more than enough money to get by. And I did compromise with the Paris apartment; when I’m not using it, it’s rented out to wealthy American tourists. The agent who takes care of it for me tells me I could rent it out year-round, without a problem. In Paris there’s never a low season, she tells me.”

  “My brother says the same thing,” Verlaque said. He looked at the book beside him—a volume of Louis Racine’s poems from the eighteenth century—and picked it up. “Racine . . . ,” he said, not knowing what to say next.

  “Not your cup of tea, I take it,” the duke said. “You probably like those drunk sarcastic English poets.”

  Verlaque laughed. “Yes, and the Polish ones, too.” He set the book back down and a photograph fell out onto the carpet. “I’m so sorry,” he said, quickly leaning down and picking it up, handing it to the duke.

  “That’s Delphine, a friend, when we were once in London,” the duke said, looking at the photograph. “She’s dead now.” He handed it back to Verlaque.

  Verlaque looked at the photograph and tried to smile. He wasn’t sure why the duke was sharing this information with him. The woman was smiling, her hands held behind her back. In the background was a flat-roofed apart
ment building, with artists’ studio–size living room windows and an open parking garage beneath. “Is this really London? Looks more like L.A.”

  “Hampstead, believe it or not. I still remember the address, Two Willow Road. That was Delphine, ever the adventurer. She was a retired architect from Paris and had read about the houses in the newspaper. They had been built by a modernist architect, to the dismay of all the neighbors, including that fellow who wrote the James Bond books.”

  “Ian Fleming.”

  “That’s him,” the duke said. “They are now protected, listed buildings. They were giving tours that weekend . . . I think it was the National Trust you just mentioned.”

  Verlaque smiled and handed the duke the photograph.

  “We were very happy that day,” the duke said, slipping it back in the book. “You like Wordsworth?”

  “Huge fan.”

  “Delphine was, too. When I first met you I didn’t think you were that kind of a man,” the duke said, smiling. “And I’m sorry for what I said about you and your wife one day growing apart. I suppose I was grieving a bit; over Delphine and Marguerite. I even told my good friend Frère Joël the other day that church weddings were malarkey. I need to apologize to him, too.”

  “Take him out for lunch,” Verlaque said, smiling. “La Fontaine has reopened.”

  “I know,” the duke said. “Mme Dreyfus telephoned me late last night to tell me that the old fountain is running once again. She could hear it from her apartment windows.”

  • • •

  By the time Verlaque got to La Fontaine, Marine was already there, sitting in her preferred seat by the window. She waved and held up her glass of champagne. Verlaque walked in and leaned down to give her a kiss. He looked up and Bear waved from the open kitchen, then bent down and got back to work.

  “I’ll be right back,” he whispered. He walked to the back of the restaurant and looked out of the windows at the sixteenth-century fountain, water flowing from its weathered brass spout. There’s joy in the mountains; There’s life in the fountains, he silently recited. Wordsworth, he thought, smiling.