“You are American?” he asked, ignoring my hand.
“Yes. I’m staying at the home of a friend who lives in St. Marc. I came to Avignon this morning to take Monsieur Bertrand’s cooking class.” I cocked my head toward the kitchen classroom.
“You have your passport with you, yes?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” I opened my bag, pulled out my passport and handed it to him.
He flipped it open to the photograph, checked it against my face, paged forward to the date-of-entry stamp and gave it back. “Why is it that you are down here?” he asked sternly.
“I was having tea with some of the other students when Madame Poutine—she was also in our class—accosted us. She was distraught, and crying that the chef had been killed. I thought she might be mistaken in what she’d seen. I rushed down here hoping he might be alive, in need of medical help. But, as you see, she was right.”
“You are a doctor?”
“Heavens, no!”
“A nurse perhaps?”
“No. I have no medical degree.”
“Yet you came down here to offer the chef medical help.”
“I know that sounds odd,” I said, “but if he’d had a heart attack or choked on something, I thought I could lend assistance until an ambulance arrived.”
“And, of course, you are trained to lend assistance. No?”
“In a way, yes,” I said, relieved I could answer in the affirmative. “I’ve taken several first-aid courses, and CPR; that’s cardiopulmonary resuscitation.”
“I know what CPR is.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure if it was the same in French.”
“And what were you doing outside, if I may ask?”
“Certainly,” I said, “I noticed that the door was ajar, and wanted to see where it led. I thought perhaps the killer was making his escape.”
“And was this killer ‘making his escape’?”
“No. No one was outside.”
“You don’t seem at all disturbed to be confronted by a dead man. Women are usually—how do you say?—delicate. They scream or faint at the sight of a corpse.”
“That’s not—”
He interrupted me. “They don’t look so calmly around, notice the door is a bit open, and go investigate. Vous gardez votre sang froid. You are very cool.” He raised an eyebrow and glared at me. “But what if the killer had been around, Madame Fletcher? Would you know what to do if he pointed a gun at you?”
“Oh, he wasn’t ...” I stopped mid-sentence.
“You were about to say?”
I sighed. “I was about to say that I don’t think Monsieur Bertrand was shot. And I also don’t think that the killer would hang around outside, waiting to be discovered.”
“And why is it, Madame, that you don’t believe the victim was shot? Did you see another murder weapon?”
“No, but I also don’t see any shell casing,” I replied. “And there wasn’t a shell casing outside the door, or anything that could be a murder weapon. I checked. From the hole in his shirt, it looks to me like Chef Bertrand was stabbed, although since I didn’t examine him, I can’t say what the instrument might have been.”
“You intrigue me, Madame,” he said. “You are not, by any chance, a homicide detective?”
“No, but I have made a study of the subject for some time.”
“And why is that?”
“I study murders because I write murder mysteries. That’s how I make my living, Detective ... I’m sorry, I don’t believe you gave me your name.”
“The rank is Inspector, Madame. I am Inspector LeClerq.”
“Inspector LeClerq, while you and I are conversing, the killer could be getting away. Chef Bertrand was alive an hour ago. The person responsible for his death may still be in the hotel. We should be looking for the murder weapon. We’re giving the killer too much time to dispose of the evidence.”
“We?” His eyebrows rose. “You seem to think, Madame, that Sergeant Thierry and I are inadequate to the task. That we require your assistance.”
“I didn’t mean to imply....”
“Please allow us to do our job,” he said. “The Avignon Gendarmerie is well equipped to investigate all crimes. We can do more than arrest the pickpockets and petty thieves who arrive each summer along with the tourists.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” I said, trying to think how I’d gotten into this argument. I heard my name called.
Mallory raced through the archway from the hall, and drew to a halt at the sight of the two policemen. “Mrs. Fletcher, are you all right?” The American teenager I’d met on the train to Avignon last week had surprised me this morning when she’d shown up in my cooking class. She was a lonely child, drifting around France, perhaps running away from school or home. I meant to find out. Another mystery to solve, but first, this one.”
“Yes, dear. I’m fine.”
“I heard upstairs ...” She was trying to catch her breath. “That there had been a murder.” She shook her head. “You weren’t around.” A deep breath. “I got worried. And they wouldn’t let me downstairs to look for you.”
“Then how did you get here?” LeClerq asked.
Mallory flushed. “There’s a set of stairs from the hotel’s dining room.” She pointed behind her. “It goes to the other end of the hotel kitchen.”
Just then the elevator doors opened and two men entered the room. One was carrying a small case, and the other held a camera with a flash unit.
“It’s getting a bit crowded in this place,” Inspector LeClerq grumbled. “Perhaps you would be good enough to wait upstairs with the others so we may finish our work down here.
Thierry had positioned his body to block Mallory’s view of the chef, but now he moved aside to allow the newcomers to conduct their part of the investigation. Mallory gasped when she glimpsed the lifeless body of Emil Bertrand. “Oh my gosh. Is it him?”
‘I think Inspector LeClerq is right,” I said, taking Mallory’s arm and turning her around. ”We should wait for him upstairs. Why don’t you show me where this other staircase is.”
We walked down the hall to the hotel kitchen, Mallory excitedly burbling about how she had searched for me upstairs and begged the officer guarding the stairwell to let her try the lower floor. I recognized the signs of an adrenaline release. I twould take awhile for her to come down from its intensity. I took her arm as we walked and patted her hand. “You can see, I’m just fine,” I said. “Thank you for worrying about me.”
As we passed the door to the office used by the hotel chefs, I heard a sound, as if something had fallen off a desk or shelf. I put my ear to the wooden panel and my hand on the knob. Someone was inside. I twisted the knob and the door opened. Guy, the sous-chef who’d assisted Bertrand this morning, was on his knees, frantically gathering a sheaf of papers and folders that had slid off the overloaded desk.
“Hello,” he said, pressing the folders to his chest. “I’ve got to clean up this mess one of these days. I can’t find anything anymore.”
“Where have you been, Guy?” I asked, wondering if he was trying to shield the front of his uniform from view.
He looked confused. “I went up to my apartment to get the materials for tomorrow’s class, and then I ... and then I came back. There’s a lot of work to do to prepare for these classes. Why do you ask?” He was tripping over his words, not at all the self-assured sous-chef from the morning.
“How did you manage to get in here without running into the police upstairs?”
“There are police upstairs?” A few papers slipped out of his grasp and fell to the floor. He made a grab for them.
“Oh, Guy, the most terrible thing,” Mallory began. I squeezed her arm, and she stopped abruptly.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, watching his face closely. I sensed someone behind me and whirled around.
“You’re doing my job again, Madame Fletcher.” The fierce eyes of Inspector LeClerq bored into mine.
My idyllic va
cation in Provence was getting off to a rocky start.
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