“All right, Isabelle, bring the maître d’ over and let’s hear this.”
Isabelle went off and returned with a round-faced man with the dead eyes of a blind person. But his approach was so confident it was obvious he saw perfectly and had mastered the technique of staring blankly straight ahead while getting around on his peripheral vision.
“This is Monsieur Flétard. He’s the maître d’hôtel. His job is complicated because he has to keep everything moving smoothly in the dark. But he doesn’t miss a trick. You really need to listen to what he has to say.”
Flétard was obviously fond of his blind look. As he spoke to Capucine, he stared unseeingly fifteen degrees off her left shoulder with a lugubrious deadpan.
“Tell her what you saw,” Isabelle encouraged, like an outraged grandmother prodding a grandchild to report on the peccadillo of a sibling.
“Commissaire,” Flétard said, “as I’ve already told your officers, I heard one of my waiters shout out in alarm and turned on the lights. It took a few moments for our eyes to adjust, and then I saw that one of the guests had been stabbed, so I called the police.”
“Not that part,” Isabelle said irritably.
“Well, Commissaire, I don’t quite know how to put this, but in the midst of the confusion I noticed that one of our patrons seemed to be emerging from under the table.”
“From under the table?”
“Yes, and her companion was stretching back in his chair in a gesture that just might have been ... I can’t really be sure ... but it was as if he was ... How can I phrase this ... ? Well, uh, possibly, zipping up his trousers.”
“So shall I arrest them?” Isabelle asked breathlessly. She clearly saw no need to explain whom she was speaking about.
Capucine locked her face into the tight, stony look of those trying very hard not to laugh.
“Isabelle, I need the three of you to get back to interviewing the front-of-the-house staff. I’ll deal with this little incident myself. Monsieur Flétard, stay right here. I’ll be back in a moment. I need to talk to you.”
As Capucine came up to Sybille and Voisin, Sybille greeted her with adolescent intimacy. “Salut! I was hoping I’d get to see you. I had a lot of fun with your boss the other day.”
“He’s not my bo—,” Capucine started to say sharply and caught herself.
Sybille wore a very short black chiffon dress that fell away from the bustline with X-ratable Empire simplicity. As she rose, her ample breasts swung freely under the flimsy chiffon. Capucine could feel the attraction in the male component of the herded patrons behind her. Her legs were made even longer by high-heeled sandals held tight by a large floppy satin bow around her ankles. Capucine wondered how she could manage to find out where the shoes had come from while remaining professional. An elaborate tortoiseshell comb held Sybille’s hair in a large curlicued bun on top of her head, emphasizing the expanse of creamy flesh of her upper torso and neck. The look was summery and astonishingly erotic. Sensing the crowd’s eyes locked on her, she extracted the comb and shook her hair free to cascade into a sensuous bedroom mop. There was an audible intake of breath. For the penned-up customers the gesture had transcended the murder. The body was now no more than a minor prop for her performance. It was the first time Capucine had experienced genuine star quality at close quarters.
During this production Voisin leaned smugly back in his chair, so pleased with himself, he strongly invited a bitch slap. But underneath the veneer something was clearly wrong. It was like rust waiting to explode through the carefully waxed finish of an aging luxury sedan.
“Monsieur Voisin,” Capucine said, “is there anything you can tell me about what happened here tonight?”
“A great deal! But none of it has any bearing on the crime.”
“And don’t ask me,” Sybille interjected, giggling. “Where I was, it was even darker than in the restaurant.”
Capucine looked at them sternly. “Very well. You two are now officially ‘persons of interest’ to the police. I’ll be calling on you in the morning to take your depositions. You’re free to go home now, but you must not leave Paris without police permission. If you do, you will be arrested, and the simple fact of having attempted to leave the city will be considered a crime punishable by a prison sentence. Is that perfectly clear?”
Even beneath their alcoholic glow the couple was shocked enough to be at a loss for words. Capucine turned on her heel and made a disdainful flicking gesture with the tips of her fingers, instructing Momo to get them out of the restaurant as quickly as possible.
“And a few minutes after they’re gone, you can let all the other customers go, too,” she told Momo. “Then the three of you can finish up with the waitstaff while I do the kitchen staff.”
She went back to the maître d’ and sat him down at one of the long tables.
“All right. I need to understand how this place works. First off, how do customers get in?”
“There’s only one way. Once the hostess confirms their reservation, she buzzes for me and I go up to collect them. We go through a big song and dance, putting their hands on the shoulder of the person in front so they can follow me through the double set of doors and creep down the staircase. Obviously, the two doors are there so the dining room remains completely dark. We have the same thing for the kitchen so the light doesn’t shine in there when they bring in the food. Creating the right mood is the basis of the experience.”
“And if you’re busy, will the hostess ever let them come down by themselves?”
“Of course not. They’d kill themselves on the staircase. And that rigmarole with the hand on the shoulder gives them a three-blind-mice feeling, kicking their evening off. A key part of the experience is making them feel helpless.”
“Understood. Then what?”
“I leave the group standing by the door and take them one by one to their seats. Once they’re seated, I whisper the menu in their ear. There are always only three dishes. They’re chosen to be as liquid and messy as possible. That’s all part of the show. Then a waiter serves them just like in any other restaurant, except he makes a big deal out of feeling their backs to know where they are. The other difference is that we have to bring extra napkins.” He laughed maliciously.
Capucine pushed through the two sets of double doors separated by a five-foot hallway and went into the brightly lit kitchen. With its stainless-steel tables, greasy stoves, and grill racks, it looked like every other small-restaurant kitchen in Paris, right down to the open doorway into an alley, a haven for smoke breaks and short respites from the heat.
The kitchen staff champed with impatience. Almost without exception they were North Africans. They had been confined to the kitchen for hours, knowing nothing, hearing nothing, forbidden to leave the room.
Capucine introduced herself and started in. “To begin with, I have to tell you that a man was killed in the restaurant tonight. That means the restaurant will be closed tomorrow and probably for a day or two after. I need to talk to you for a few minutes, and then one of my officers will come in and verify your papers and let you go home.”
Several of the men looked uneasily at each other and fidgeted.
“I have nothing to do with immigration. As long as you can give some indication of where you live, that’s fine with me.”
There was an almost audible sigh of relief.
“Who’s in charge of the cuisine?”
“I am, madame,” a swarthy, squat man said.
“Well, Chef, tell me what goes on in here.”
“It’s very simple, madame. We make just three dishes. They were picked by the management. We never change them, because we have almost no repeat business. Our dishes are bœuf bourguignon, bouillabaisse, and blanquette de veau.”
“The three Bs,” one of the staff said.
There was a round of loud laughter. They were delighted at the idea of two or three days off with pay.
“We make them in a special way,” the c
hef continued.
“The dishes are too liquid and the pieces are all in different sizes to make it difficult and messy for the customers to eat. We also add extra liquid to the desserts to make them drip on the customers’ laps. They come in big bowls with oversize serving spoons. We do île flottante. The floating mound of fluffed egg white is impossible for them to deal with.” There was more raucous laughter in the room. “The other dessert is nage de fruits rouges—red berries floating in a sweet sauce. We put in some extra-long pieces of pineapple so they’ll fall off the serving spoon and make a big mess and nice red stains.”
The staff laughed again, childishly malevolent, like schoolboys who had just engineered a very clever prank. It was clearly a happy kitchen.
“Does anyone ever come in through that door?” Capucine asked, indicating the open back door with her head.
“Of course. We all go out there for a smoke every now and then. And naturally girlfriends show up looking for their man, but I never let them come in the kitchen.”
“Are you sure they never sneak in?”
“Not a chance. If someone was in here not wearing white, I’d notice it immediately. I always have the whole kitchen in the corner of my eye. Nothing will screw things up faster than an angry girlfriend. Trust me on that!”
There were loud laughs of agreement.
Isabelle, David, and Momo came in and took names and addresses, checking them against immigration cards and driver’s licenses, and in some cases letters or addressed advertising flyers that had come in the mail. Three cases, who had no papers at all, were handed over to Momo, who chatted with them in street patois until he finally announced to Capucine that he would know how to find them if need be. In fifteen minutes they were done and the kitchen staff was sent home. Only the forensics team remained, finishing up before they put the body in a bag and took it to the morgue.
Exhausted, Capucine leaned over the metal table in the kitchen with her weight on her elbows. The three detectives joined her, imitating her posture. From her bag Isabelle removed the bright orange octagonal seals that she would place on the locked front and back doors after they left, leaving the exterior in the care of a lone uniformed officer. They could not go before the seals were affixed. Listlessly, Capucine signed and dated them. They waited, staring at each other with slack mouths.
David drummed his fingers gently and said, “MO’s a carbon copy of the last case. And it’s another closed-room mystery. The good news is that this time there are only two suspects.”
Capucine glanced at him and returned her gaze to the far wall where a small cockroach proceeded serenely toward an air vent.
She stood up straight and gave the table a hard double rap.
“Got it,” she said. “There’s something wrong with this picture. Momo, you stay here. You two come with me.”
She led the two brigadiers into the dining room.
“Ajudant Dechery. I hate to interrupt you, but I’m going to need to turn off the lights for a quick minute. David, go over to the circuit box and kill them.”
The room was plunged into utter darkness. For a few seconds brightly colored images danced on their retinas, but then those too disappeared and the blackness settled around them like a heavy mantle. The dinginess of the room was transformed into elegance.
“All right, Momo, come in here!” Capucine yelled.
Momo came out briskly. As he came through the second set of double doors, the first doors still swung very slightly on their spring hinges admitting the faintest pulsing glimmer. It lasted for only a few seconds but it was enough to shine on the tables closest to the door and shatter the mood.
“Momo, they must have some sort of subdued light in the kitchen during the food service. Can you go back in there and see if you can find it?”
He returned briskly in less than thirty seconds. This time no light at all was visible through the doors.
“Those low-hanging lamps in there turn out to have red bulbs, like in an old-style darkroom. Come see,” Momo said.
In the kitchen, cones of dim ruby light lay over the worktable and the row of stoves. Everything not under the light was cloaked in deep shadow.
“Anyone could have come in through the door. As long as he was wearing a white coat, no one would notice,” Isabelle said.
“And in this rain all you’d have to do is show up at the back door, slip off your raincoat so you’d be in your white jacket, walk through the kitchen, do your deed, nip back into the kitchen, put your raincoat back on, and walk away. Nobody’d be any the wiser,” David said.
“Of course, they’d have a hell of a time getting around the dining room,” Isabelle said.
“You can buy army surplus night-vision glasses real cheap in the Arab part of the flea market,” Momo said.
Capucine smiled. There was no doubt at all in their minds. They now were sure they knew exactly how the murder had been committed. The only thing Capucine had no doubts about was that—juge or no juge—she needed to get cracking on the case.
CHAPTER 13
Capucine spent the night writhing and squirming, prodded without mercy by the horns of the two challenges she faced. One was the moral imperative to disobey the order of a direct superior if she was to prevent a murderer from walking away free. The other was more compelling: the desperate need to eliminate the escalating threat to Alexandre.
The phone rang. Capucine glanced at the red LED display of the clock on her night table. Seven o’clock, right on the second.
“Commissaire? I’m calling to put your mind at rest.”
“You’re up early, monsieur le contrôleur général.” Capucine could never understand how he read her mind so perfectly.
“I like to get here before the crowd invades the parvis. It’s the only time of day I can open the window and think straight. I was happy to see that Commissaire Lacombe called you last night. Good man, Lacombe. Gave you the chance of seeing the crime scene while it was fresh. You’re now officially in charge of this case, so you’re free to interrogate anyone you want. Of course, you were going to do that, anyway.”
“What about the juge d’instruction?”
“No juge has been appointed yet. I need to polish the case notes before I send them over to the magistrates’ hall. No way I can get around to it today. My appointment book is packed solid. The way things are going, it’ll take me a few days to get to them. And, of course, it will take the magistrates a few more days to see the link between this case and the last one. So you’ve got at least a week.”
“So you think they’re linked.”
“Linked?” he snorted. “Of course they are. The second one is almost identical to the first. But let’s not waste your morning chatting away. You’ve got work to do.” He hung up without saying good-bye.
It was five minutes after seven. Capucine went into the kitchen and bullied the Pasquini into producing a café au lait.
At eight she picked up the kitchen phone, called the Hôtel Plaza Athénée, and asked for Monsieur Voisin’s room. Sybille picked up with a whispered hello.
“Mademoiselle Charbonnier, this is Commissaire Le Tellier.”
“Salut,” Sybille answered, yawning. “S’up?”
“I’m going to come around at ten thirty to see you and Monsieur Voisin.”
“Ten thirty? Today? Can’t we do it tomorrow? And later in the day? I have a ton of stuff to do, and Guy’s not going to be up at ten thirty.” There was a pause. She had looked at her clock. “Christ! Do you know what time it is? Don’t you ever go to bed?”
“Mademoiselle, I can either come to your hotel at ten thirty or send a squad car to have you both picked up. In that case you might have to spend some time in a detention cell, waiting for me to finish my business. It’s up to you.”
“All right. All right. Merde,” Sybille mumbled. There were sounds of her sinking back into the pillows. She hung up. It was just not a morning for good telephone manners.
Punctual for once, Capucine walke
d through the marble and gilt rococo extravagance of the Plaza Athénée exactly at ten thirty with Isabelle and David in her wake.
David knocked politely on the door. There was no reply. He waited a moment and banged loudly.
A distant male voice shouted irritably, “I’m in the shower. Come in. The door’s unlocked. I’ll be out in a second.”
The suite’s cavernous sitting room was over full with brand-new Louis XVI–style furniture, shiny with thick varnish and polished marble tops. A large silver tray with three cups, a basket overflowing with croissants and petits pains au chocolat, and ornate pots of coffee and milk sat on a black-onyx-topped coffee table, presumably for the two inhabitants of the suite and Capucine. The three detectives milled around the room, waiting for Voisin to emerge.
Isabelle heard it first. She froze, her cheek muscles swelling as she clenched her jaws.
Then Capucine heard it. A barely audible, rhythmic, rasping breathing that gradually became louder and faster. David smirked. Capucine shook her head slightly and plumped down in an armchair next to the coffee table.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and indicated to her brigadiers to follow suit. David served himself, but Isabelle sat rigid, round eyed, staring, jaw clamped.
Capucine examined one of the tiny jars of jam from the tray. “Confiture Christine Ferber, Niedermorschwihr, Alsace,” she read. “I’ve heard this is absolutely fabulous stuff. Tomates vertes à l’orange aux épices de pain d’épices—green tomato with orange and gingerbread spices. I’ve got to try that.”
David rooted through the selection and opted for violet-scented raspberries.
“Try the prune de Damas—damson plums. You’ll love it,” David said to Isabelle as he slathered a piece of croissant with luminous red jam.
Isabelle glared at him. “Shut the fuck up!” she hissed.
The noise level from the bedroom increased as the breathing escalated into hoarse panting, punctuated by long, tortured “ahhhs” and “ouis.”
Killer Critique Page 7