(17/40) Provence-To Die For

by Donald Bain

  “Non. Non,” he backtracked. “You did the correct thing. This time.”

  “This time?”

  “I will have to turn her over to the SRPJ. They have jurisdiction over this case.”

  “The SRPJ?”

  “Service Regional de Police Judiciaire. It is our criminal-investigation department for this region. It is based in Marseilles.”

  “Marseilles? But Claire—”

  “She was transferred there. After your rendezvous.” His expression told me he was not happy that I’d neglected to inform him of my visit when I’d seen him yesterday.

  The sound of an engine drew us both to the door. Thierry pulled up in front of the house, but he was the only person in the car. I sighed softly in relief. I wasn’t looking forward to what would occur once they found Mallory.

  “How could she disappear so quickly?” LeClerq muttered. On his way out, he gave me a card with his cellular number. I was to phone him if I heard from her.

  “By the way, Captain, I forgot to mention this,” I called after him. “I think I was being followed yesterday in Avignon.”

  He grunted. “Stay in the country, then,” he said, and climbed into the car.

  The house was unusually quiet when I closed the door. I listened carefully to what was different. Mallory hadn’t been a noisy guest, but her lively presence had filled the house with ... what? Conversation? No, we hadn’t talked that much. It was more the expectation of companionship, the understanding that another person was there to share with if the mood struck. Although she’d lived here for only a few days, she’d made the air vibrate differently, brought another perspective to the view. Would I miss her? I’d been irritated with her more times than not. While she was here, I was concerned about her, never really comfortable, knowing she fabricated stories even when the truth was innocuous. That wouldn’t change until I knew she was safe. Even if she was guilty, she still needed my help. She needed her family. How could I contact them?

  I retrieved my handbag from the bedroom and sat down in the living room next to the phone. My first call was to the bakery.

  “Allô. J’ecoute.”

  “Marie,” I said. “It’s Jessica Fletcher.”

  “Ah, Jessica, bonjour.”

  “I didn’t really expect to find you in the bakery on Sunday afternoon. I was going to leave you a message on your machine.”

  “It’s all the fault of the tax inspectors.”

  “The tax inspectors?”

  “The papers they require are impossible.”

  “I apologize for interrupting. Would you like me to call back another time?”

  “If they think I am going to tell them how much bread I sell in a month, they are very much mistaken. That is my business, not theirs, the thieves.”

  Taken aback, I asked, “How can the government determine the taxes if it doesn’t know how much you earn?”

  “The government. Poufft! The government has plenty of money. They always want to take more from the poor.”

  I smiled to myself. I doubted if she’d appreciate my pointing out that she hardly qualified as poor.

  “It’s the politicians,” she sputtered. “Always with their hands out.”

  “I can call another time,” I said.

  “They’re out to get me.”

  “The politicians?”

  “Oui. You work hard all your life, and the politicians, they steal your money. You must be very creative with writing the reports or they will trick you out of everything. You will have nothing left, not a sou.”

  “Should I call tomorrow?”

  “Non. Non. We can speak now.”

  “I wanted to ask you a favor,” I said quickly, hoping to avert another tirade.

  “Oui?”

  “Would you mind if I had some papers sent to me on your fax machine? If it’s inconvenient, please tell me.”

  “This is fine. It is no trouble.”

  “Thanks so much,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

  She gave me her fax number and I hung up wondering what “creative” writing she planned with her forms. I looked at my watch, picked up the phone, and dialed again. With the six-hour time difference, it would be early morning in Cabot Cove.

  Mort Metzger answered on the first ring. Our village sheriff was already on the job.

  “Mrs. F! How’re you doing over there? They treating you good?”

  “I’m just fine, Mort.”

  “Never been to France myself, but I had an uncle was there during the big war.”

  “It’s a beautiful country.”

  “Maureen’s always going on about how she’d like to see Paris before she dies, but I tease her and tell her she’s too young. Maybe for our next anniversary.”

  “That would be a lovely gift,” I said. “How’s everyone at home?”

  “Well, I’m in here bringing breakfast to Jake Howard. Went on a toot last night, had to take away his car keys. Got ’im lined up for an AA visit later today. Road crew’s out doing a bit of sanding. We got a dusting. Snow melts pretty fast but the roads’re slick. Mayor Shevlin’s got the flu. Let’s see, what else? Oh, yes. Your lady friend, staying up at the house, entered a flower arrangement in the Ladies’ Club Fall Flower Fair and won a blue ribbon. Maureen was a bit disappointed. Her arrangement only took third. Not bad for a foreigner, whaddya say?”

  “She’s an American citizen, Mort. She just lives in France.”

  “Well, she’s from away,” he said, using the Maine expression for anyone who lives out of state.

  “That’s true. How’s Seth?”

  “Saw Doc Hazlitt last week. Got himself a little putting green set up in his office. You know, some of that green indoor-outdoor carpet, and a little plastic cup. He says now that Dr. Jenny is working with him, he figures to practice up on his golf game so he’ll be ready by the spring.”

  My good friend of many years, and Cabot Cove’s only doctor for most of that time, had taken in a young partner in Dr. Jennifer Countryman. Seth wasn’t quite ready to retire yet, but the presence of Dr. Jenny was giving him some well-deserved time off, even if he chose to spend most of it in his office in case she needed him.

  “Please say hello for me,” I said.

  “Be happy to. So what can I do for you, Mrs. F?”

  “I’m hoping you can find the parents of a young woman I’ve met here.” I gave Mort a recap of the situation, as well as the number of Mallory’s passport and the issuing office.

  “Sounds like this young’un’s got herself in a deep lot of trouble,” he said.

  “Her uncle is probably somewhere in France looking for her,” I said. “Her parents should know how to contact him. I’d like to tell them what’s happened before they hear it from the authorities, but I doubt we’ll be able to reach them in time.”

  “Do you think she’s guilty?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Mort, but it doesn’t look good. Even if she is, she’s still only fifteen. I’d feel a lot better if her parents or uncle were here, someone to represent her interests and protect her rights. As it is now, I’m the only adult watching out for her.”

  “I’ll see what I can find for you. We’ve got a pretty good computer setup, and I can always call down to my buddies on the force in New York City. They’ll know how to track down her parents if I run into any snags from up here.”

  I thanked him, asked him to send whatever he could find to Mme Roulandet’s fax machine, and gave him her number.

  “Always fun working with you on a case,” he said. “Sure you don’t need me to come over there and help out in person?”

  “Do you speak French?”

  “I speak a little pig Latin.”

  I laughed. It was good to laugh. There was so much to frown about.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The ride to Les Baux was a quiet one. I’d called the Thomases, told them about Mallory, and asked if they wouldn’t mind taking me to Les Baux anyway. It wouldn’t be as carefree a day tromp
ing around the ruins as we’d planned—hard to be cheerful in the face of such gloomy news—but the trip could prove useful in my pursuit of the case. I was eager to track down René Bonassé at his aunt’s house and question him more closely. Craig was on to my true purpose, and seemed as enthusiastic to watch a “crime writer,” as he called me, investigate a murder as he was anxious to see the remains of the feudal stronghold.

  We drove through Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a pretty town that reminded me of a smaller version of Carpentras. The day was cloudy and raw, with rain threatening. At intervals, a damp wind thumped the side of the car, making it wobble. Outside St.-Rémy, we continued south along straightaways with tall trees arching over the two lanes of traffic. Farther along, the road began to curve, and we found ourselves climbing up into the Alpilles mountains. We passed forests of pine clinging to the rocky soil by their roots, their trunks bent at a precarious angle on the steep slopes as they reached for the sun. Then the forests thinned, broken up by boulders of white rock that had tumbled from the craggy hilltops, littering the ground. We crested the mountain and descended into an upland valley of olive orchards girdled by limestone cliffs. The olive trees, short and full, stretched out on both sides of the road, a sea of silvery green leaves.

  The oil made from the olives grown in Les Baux was excellent, M. Telloir had informed me. In fact, it had been awarded special status, appellation d’origine controlée, just like a fine wine. But you could not put it away for the future, like wine, he’d said; instead of improving with age, it would spoil. I’d promised myself I’d buy a bottle to see if my palate was sensitive enough to discern the difference in taste.

  As the road wound through the orchards, the naked outcroppings of rock along one mountain ridge began to take on distinctive shapes. Were those rectangular gaps caused by natural erosion or carved out by early settlers? The closer we came, the more clearly the hand of man could be seen in the shaping of the rock. The view disappeared and reappeared as we drove up a road that twisted around the side of the mountain.

  “Isn’t this exciting?” Jill said, reading to us from her guidebook. “It says the site may have been occupied as early as the Bronze Age. The tenth-century citadel was built on top of the rock cliffs, and the lords who occupied it traced their lineage back to one of the three magi, Balthazar. The buildings in the village itself date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. After Louis the Thirteenth tore the fortress down in the sixteen hundreds, the population of the village gradually moved away and it was totally deserted for two centuries.”

  “I wonder what revived it,” I said.

  “Probably tourists,” Craig put in.

  “Not at first,” Jill said. “It was the discovery of aluminum ore deposits, bauxite, named for Les Baux.”

  “What does it say about lunch?” he said. “I’m hungry.”

  “There are all kinds of shops and restaurants in the summer,” Jill replied. “I’m not sure what’s open out of season.”

  “We’ll soon find out,” he said, pulling up to a line of vehicles parked along the edge of the road. “No cars are allowed on the streets, so we’ll have to find a space and walk there.”

  We left the car midway up the hill and gave our calf muscles a good workout hiking to the village.

  “Glad I wore my track shoes,” Jill said, stopping to catch her breath. “It would be easy to twist an ankle on these cobblestones.”

  At the bottom of the village, most of the shops were shuttered. Only one was open, its shelves filled with aromatic soaps and candles, linens and dishware in the colorful Provençal designs, as well as regional cookies and candies, and bottles of oil and vinegar with sprigs of herbs floating inside.

  “You probably can ask in there if they know where to find René’s aunt,” Jill added. “It doesn’t look like many people live here in the winter.”

  The young salesgirl didn’t recognize the name of René’s aunt. “I work here part-time,” she said. “The owner, she knows everyone in the village.”

  “Is she coming in today?” I asked.

  “Non. In the summer she lives here,” the girl replied, “but now she comes only on the weekends.”

  We wandered up the main street, peering through dark windows, ducking into the occasional store open for business, more to escape the chilly wind than out of interest in the wares. I tried to imagine the village besieged by the one and a half million visitors it received every year, most of them crowding the narrow confines of the streets from May through September. It would have been impossible to find anyone in such a throng.

  “There’s a crêperie up ahead,” Craig said, his eyes lighting up. “Let’s fortify ourselves before we continue the ramble.”

  We climbed a short flight of stone stairs and entered the little café that specialized in making crepes. The only other diners were four young people from Germany chatting with the waitress in broken French. We took a table next to a window and piled our coats on an empty chair.

  “Egg and cheese sounds good to me,” Craig said, scanning the paper menu that was divided into luncheon crepes and dessert crepes.

  I ordered a spinach-and-cheese crepe and a small side salad. Jill did as well.

  “What are you going to ask his aunt when you find . her?” Craig asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m really hoping she’ll tell me where to find René.”

  “He may not be very cooperative, you know,” he said. “Didn’t strike me as the forthcoming type.”

  “He didn’t strike me that way either,” I said, “but we were coming here anyway. It’s worth a try to see if he’ll speak with me.”

  “There was something going on between René and Bertrand during the class,” Jill said.

  “I noticed it, too,” Craig said. “Bertrand seemed to be taunting him.”

  “Madame Poutine thought René had been sent to rate him,” I said. “She was trying to read his notes, and cautioned Bertrand to be careful around him.”

  Jill and Craig looked at each other and a silent message passed between them. Did they know more about René Bonassé than they were letting on?

  “Why are you interested in René?” Jill asked. “If Mallory had the knife and the police are looking for her, doesn’t that mean they think she’s the killer?”

  “They probably do,” I said. “But they still have Claire in jail, as far as I know. Evidently they’re not sure.”

  “How many people can they hold for the same crime?” Jill asked.

  “Good question,” I said.

  The waitress brought our plates and we ate the simple fare in silence. It was pleasant to have a light meal. I wasn’t quite ready yet to follow the French regimen of four-course meals at both lunch and dinner.

  Craig broke the silence. “Where does René come into this?” he asked.

  “He may not come into it at all,” I said. “But his time is unaccounted for during the period when Bertrand was killed.”

  “He said he had a phone call to make, and was going to his room,” Craig said.

  “Which may be the truth.” I said. “I just want to ask him a few questions about the chef. He’d taken the cooking class with Bertrand before. Perhaps he can give me some insight into the man.”

  “If he’s willing to talk with you at all,” Jill said.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “If. And if his aunt can tell me where to find him in the first place.”

  “You’ll want to speak with them in private, I assume,” she said.

  “I would appreciate that.”

  “We’ll go up to the Château and wander around the ruins,” Craig said. “You can meet us there when you’re finished.”

  On the way out of the café, I showed the waitress the paper with the name and number of René’s aunt and asked if she knew her.

  “Ah, oui, Jeanne Bonassé,” she said. “She has the restaurant up the street, next to the Hotel de Ville.”

  “Had we known, we could have eaten there,” Jill sa
id.

  “No harm done,” I told her.

  We parted company in front of Jeanne Bonassé’s restaurant, the Thomases going on to the ancient ruins at the top of the village. I walked up three stone steps, through an archway to an empty stone courtyard that doubtless was filled with tables in the summer. A lion’s-head fountain, now dry, hung on one wall, and empty flower boxes lined the others. The glass door to the restaurant was locked; a curtain concealed the view inside. A sign said FERMÉ, closed. I knocked. A minute or so later, a man in shirtsleeves responded to my rapping. “Bonjour, madame. The restaurant is only open for dinner. Would you like to make a reservation for tonight?”

  “I’m here to speak with Jeanne Bonassé,” I said.

  “She requires that salespeople call in advance. Do you have an appointment?”

  “It’s a personal matter.”

  The gentleman’s eyebrows lifted, but he opened the door wide to allow me to pass inside. “Is anything wrong? Any trouble?”

  “Not at all,” I assured him. “I just want a few minutes of her time.”

  “May I tell her what this is about?”

  “It’s about her nephew.”

  “René?”

  “Yes.”

  The man pulled out a chair, invited me to sit, and disappeared through a swinging door into the kitchen. I unbuttoned my coat, but left it on. This might be a short interview.

  The restaurant was small, no more than twenty tables. I admired the simple country decor, most of the material available from stores around the village. On each round table was a long yellow-and-blue paisley cloth covered by a square of white linen. Blue napkins bloomed from the heavy glass goblets, and rough pottery plates the color of egg yolks made up the place settings. The walls were the same gray stone seen everywhere, but the bottom two-thirds had been plastered and painted a soft sky blue. The effect was both cheerful and elegant, an unusual combination.

  The door from the kitchen swung open and a woman in her mid-fifties emerged. She was simply dressed in a beige cashmere sweater and skirt. Her dark hair, streaked with gray, was shoulder-length and held back on the sides by two combs. In her right hand she held a handkerchief with lace edging.