Pinot Noir

by Lorraine Evanoff

  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” she bluffed.

  He put the car in gear and drove. “I was working as an archeologist for the Musée du Châtillonnais in 1990, when I met a language student from England, Jo. We were going to be married.”

  “She broke your heart?”

  “She was murdered.”

  A sense of dread rushed over Louise. It was an unexpected plot twist. “What happened?”

  “She placed an advertisement in a local Burgundy newspaper, offering English lessons. A man contacted her, she went to meet him, then disappeared. On May 17th, 1990, her body was found in the Yonne River. She was naked and had been raped, beaten, and strangled. The crime remains unsolved.”

  “That’s horrible,” was all Louise could muster to say. “Were there any suspects?”

  “A major suspect was the convicted serial killer known as The Beast of Ardennes.”

  “A serial killer?”

  “His real name is Michel Fourniret.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She touched his hand and he jerked the steering wheel while slamming the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. It was obvious that this part of his life was still sensitive. His eyes were now gray in the colorless gloom and she cautiously placed her hand on the door latch.

  “Promise me you will not do anymore research,” Matthieu growled, the storm clearing from his eyes, leaving tears in its wake. He closed his eyes letting the tears drop. “Not without me.”

  She let go of the door handle and brushed the hair from his brow. “I promise to be careful. That’s the best I can do.”

  He lowered his head and Louise held him tightly. His giant arms enveloped her, and she felt the shutters of his sobs as he cried into her sweater.

  “It was my fault,” he said. “If only I had not been away on an excavation, she would not have been alone.”

  “It was not your fault.”

  “Yes, it was! I should have known!”

  “How could you have known?” His anguish seemed to go deeper than heartbreak or survivor’s guilt. It evoked an unpleasant memory for her, when the Chief Financial Officer of the BCCI London office after learning that the criminal activity was more than just money laundering and pyramid schemes, but also murder.18 Louise would never forget his look of horrified remorse.

  “Everything will be okay,” Louise said.

  He put the car in gear and headed back down the road. All the charm of the day had vaporized, leaving the debris of shattered souvenirs, ruined in an instant. They drove in strained silence, but her mind raced.

  “I’m sorry for the way I have been acting toward you,” Matthieu finally said. “I have lived here all my life and never thought something like that ever could happen.” He glowered at the beams of oncoming headlights in the inky darkness. “The murderer, Fourniret, is still out on the streets, and now they are harassing us.”

  “They?” Louise asked, but Matthieu didn’t respond.

  He pulled into the driveway, the fireplace burning inside the main house cast a warm contrast to cold reality outside. Matthieu walked Louise to her cottage.

  “Thank you for today,” Louise said emptily. He moved closer, his lips brushing softly against hers, their tongues playing, but with less enthusiasm than before. The pressure of his weight aroused her, but his un-dried tears reminded her of his tortured soul. She broke away, with little protest by Matthieu. “See you tomorrow. Get some sleep.” Louise kissed his cheek then retreated into her cottage and closing the door with the sound of finality.

  PART III

  ALL ROADS LEAD TO BELGIUM

  T W E N T Y – F I V E

  January 9, 2002

  Sleep was not an option. There were too many clues to ignore. First, both Vladimir and LaFontaine had pointed her to Burgundy. Second, the ominous warning of Dis Pater from the man at the bar in Pommard. Then the clairvoyant’s visions at Château du Chastenay. And now Matthieu’s tragic revelation. Louise booted up her laptop and waited for it to connect to a satellite signal, praying that the Internet would yield information to connect the dots. She opened the Netscape web browser and typed in the Yahoo search engine. After a few attempts with different wording in French, she found shocking headlines about the English student, Joanna Jo Rogers.

  On the morning of May 17, 1990, police found a body floating in the Yonne River. According to news reports – and confirming what Matthieu had told her – Jo had placed an advertisement in a local newspaper, offering English lessons. Investigators learned that a local man had responded to Joanna’s ad by phone and was interested in hiring her to teach his teenage son. They arranged to meet at 7:00 p.m. on May 16 at the town square in Auxerre. Joanna was never seen alive again.

  According to the comprehensive article Louise had found on the Internet, the authorities conducted a bungled investigation. The police cordoned off a small section of land close to where the body had been found and began searching for clues. However, investigators ignored a large portion of the surrounding area, most of which had been trampled by police, emergency personnel, onlookers, and vehicles. The secured area became accessible to the public just hours later, and the following day, children on a field trip further trampled it. Had there been any evidence, it was likely lost due to the contamination of the crime scene.

  The body was taken to a nearby hospital for autopsy and her identity was confirmed. Joanna was twenty-two years old, from Gloucestershire, England. She had enrolled in a modern languages work-study program at Leeds University and had taken a position as an assistant English teacher at a secondary school in the nearby town of Auxerre. At the time of her death, she was only one week away from completing her bachelor’s degree.

  Online court records included a scan of her autopsy report. It revealed that Joanna had been drugged, tied up, raped, beaten, and strangled before being dumped into the river. The medical examiner determined that her body had been in the water only several hours, indicating that it had been discarded in broad daylight. Referring back to the previous article, police still could not find any witnesses. They believed that whoever murdered Joanna was probably familiar with the area and resided in the immediate vicinity. Yet, police were unable to produce any suspects.

  Louise found some additional information in another article. Joanna’s parents, Edward and Paula, hired an attorney to assist them in gaining access to information about the case from the Auxerre police. Their expectations were quickly shattered when they realized how inadequately the case had been handled. Most shockingly, the reporter of the article revealed, was that their daughter’s murder was not an isolated case. Apparently, seventeen other girls, ages sixteen to twenty-two, had gone missing or had been found murdered in Auxerre. Most of the cases had also been grossly mismanaged, completely ignored and even discarded. The reporter theorized that high-level officials intended to cover up the fact that Burgundy had an unusually high murder rate.

  With this new information, Louise got in the car and drove to the bar in Pommard. She sat on the same stool of the busy pub and waited for the bartender, Jules, to notice her. She saw the old man sitting in his usual spot at the end of the bar nursing a brandy and reading a book, but he did not acknowledge her.

  “Qu’est-ce que je vous sers?” Jules said robotically while drying a wine glass. Then he looked up from his work and saw her. “Ahhh! Mademoiselle Karen! Vous revoilà!”

  “Bonsoir, Jules. Une bouteille de pinot noir Grand Cru, s’il vous plaît.”

  “Une bouteille? Un jour de fête, ou un jour de deuil?”

  “Un peu des deux,” Louise replied that she was both celebrating and mourning.

  He eyed her with a boyish charm and a magician’s agility as he placed a large Burgundy glass in front of her. He presented the bottle of the Grand Cru, then expertly uncorked it and poured a small amount for her to taste.

  “Alors, I thought you had forgotten me,” Jules said.

  “Jamais.” Louise swirled, sniffed, sipped and nodded.r />
  He poured 150ml into her glass. “Are you hungry?”

  Louise realized she hadn’t had dinner. “I’m famished.”

  “Would you like to try the spécialité of the house?”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  He dashed off and Louise continued to swirl the ruby liquid then picked up the glass by the stem to observe the color. Through the mirror behind the bar she noticed the old man watching her. She gave him a subtle nod and his face twitched with a half-smile. Jules returned and placed a steaming plate in front of her.

  “Voilà, le boeuf bourguignon. Bon appétit.”

  “Ça a été rapide, Merci!” Louise was grateful for the fast service after the long emotional day. She enjoyed the roast beef smothered in rich red wine gravy which paired perfectly with the pinot noir. They certainly could cook in this region. After she had eaten it all, Louise tore off a bit of baguette crust, tossed it onto her plate and pushed it around with the fork and knife to soak up the last of the sauce, making the perfect bite. She washed it down with the last sip in her glass. It was now around 10 p.m. and the restaurant started to empty of locals, whereas in Paris the dinner rush would just be getting started. However, Jules seemed in no hurry to get rid of Louise, patiently drying wineglasses, then refilling hers.

  “Ça a été?”

  “It was delicious,” Louise said. “Can I offer you a glass?”

  “How can I refuse?” Jules reached for a Burgundy balloon glass and poured himself some.

  “Can you pour a glass for the gentleman at the end of the bar?”

  “Inspecteur Ducard? He’s more of a brandy drinker at this hour.”

  Inspector? Louise was now insistent. “Please, offer him some wine so I can pull the worms from his nose.” The French expression, thought to come from a deformation of the Latin word verum for truth, which was similar to the French word vers for worms, combined with the English expression to worm a secret out of somebody, had gracefully mutated into pulling the worms from one’s nose.

  “Let’s give it a try.” Jules took the bottle and another large glass. He placed it front of the old man who looked at Louise. She tipped her glass to him, he nodded, and Jules poured the wine. The inspector came and sat next to Louise.

  “Santé.” He raised his glass, which Louise clinked. “Inspecteur Gérard Ducard,” he said, offering his hand.

  “Enchantée, inspecteur. Je m’appelle Karen Baker.”

  “Américaine?”

  “Oui. I’m a teacher on hiatus doing research for my novel,” she continued in French.

  “Your novel?” Ducard asked.

  “Yes, a mystery set in Burgundy.”

  Deducing where she was headed, Ducard guzzled the whole glass of fine wine and got up to leave. “Good luck.”

  “Do you have to leave so soon? I’d love to interview you for a character in my book.”

  “I don’t do interviews,” he said tersely.

  “Well, I hope to see you here again.”

  “Bonne soirée,” he replied and made for the door.

  Louise looked at Jules who gave her a foreboding look. “Law enforcement has had a tough time over the past couple years.”

  “How so?”

  “The botched investigation of the serial murders in Auxerre ten years ago had been mostly forgotten until recently.”

  “What happened recently?”

  “The confession of the bus driver last year and now the serial murders in Belgium seem to be stirring things up here.”

  “That’s it!” Louise said, absentmindedly.

  “Pardon?”

  “I heard about the serial killer in Belgium. It made international news not only for his gruesomeness, but also for the police incompetence.” She took a sip of the wine and looked Jules in the eyes. “Do you think they’re connected?”

  “I am just a humble barman,” he said. “But there are many conspiracy theories.”

  “Come on, you must know as much as anyone. What about that English girl?” Louise snapped her fingers feigning to remember. “Jo…?”

  Louise could see by Jules’ expression that she had found the right topic to turn on the information spigot. “You mean Joanna Rogers,” the barman began. “Jo’s murder was another investigation that was bungled from the beginning. The crime scene was a forensic disaster and the French police withheld so much information that the British government had to do an independent inquiry. They found that French coroners had ignored critical evidence discovered on the crime scene, prompting a second autopsy that revealed several bite marks on Joanna’s body. From a forensic standpoint, bite marks are vital clues that can reveal information about the killer because teeth…” He bared his teeth and chomped.

  “Of course!” Louise finished his thought. “Bite marks are unique like fingerprints and can be matched to dental records.”

  “Indeed.” What kind of novel was the American writing? Jules thought. “The revelation shocked Joanna’s parents who couldn’t comprehend how something so obvious and important could have gone unnoticed. Also, during the British autopsy, medical examiners obtained…” Jules paused a beat, “…sperm samples. It took forensics two years to analyze the samples, the results of which led to a genetic print. The DNA evidence was one of the biggest clues in the investigation, and the parents hoped that it would lead investigators to the killer. However, investigators refused to call for DNA tests of the local male population.”

  “Inspector Ducard refused?”

  “Non! Ducard pushed for an investigation of men with criminal records, but he was denied. The family had to take matters into their own hands, distributing leaflets offering a reward to anyone with information into Joanna’s death. They received some interesting responses.”

  “What kind of responses?” Louise was riveted as Jules filled in the gaps of her previous Internet research.

  “The family members of three other women murdered in Burgundy between 1987 and 1990, Isabelle Laville, Danielle Bernard, and Sylvie Baton, responded to the leaflets. Their families were angry because they also felt that the investigators had been mishandling the cases. Joanna’s parents presented the new leads to the French authorities. However, for some unknown reason, the investigators failed to pursue the tips. Because of Joanna’s parents, approximately thirteen more unsolved murders and disappearances in the Auxerre area over the last thirty years became public. Investigators never told Joanna’s parents about the spate of murders, two of which occurred within months of Joanna’s death.”

  “Scandalous.” Louise was truly shocked and pressed him for more. “You mentioned a bus driver confessed last year?”

  “Yes, in December 2000, Émile Louis, a sixty-eight-year-old retired bus driver for a special needs school, confessed that he had raped and murdered seven pupils between 1977 and 1979. When the girls first began to disappear, the police had interviewed Émile, because they knew he had a history of sex offenses and the cases had some similarities. Many of the girls were either mentally handicapped, or, like Joanna, far from home. However, the police disregarded him as a suspect and instead reported the girls as runaway cases. Émile continued to drive female students to and from school…” Jules paused again for speculative effect, “…probably continuing to rape and kill them indiscriminately. He would not be considered a suspect again until he confessed two decades later.”

  “How could that happen?” Louise asked.

  “It gets worse. Émile was caught because his daughter found items in his house belonging to several of the victims. During his confession, Émile told authorities that he had buried the girls near the Yonne River. Only the skeletal remains of two girls were ever recovered. Then, not long after his admission of guilt, Émile changed his story claiming that he had been pressured into giving false testimony. He insisted that a nebulous ring of prominent local authorities had routinely abducted, abused and killed girls.”

  “But he knew where the bodies were, so he was convicted, right?” Louise asked
.

  “They could not charge Émile with the murders because under French law, the statute of limitations to charge someone for murder was ten years after the commission of a crime. Instead, they convicted him for kidnapping, for which there is no statute of limitations.”

  “But he must have been Joanna’s killer, right?”

  “Non! Émile could not have been directly responsible for Joanna’s death. At the time of her murder, he was serving a prison sentence for sexually assaulting a minor. However, a private investigation by Christian Jambert clearly established that Émile was linked to all the women.”

  “Who is Christian Jambert?” Louise asked.

  “Christian Jambert was a former police officer who quit to become a private investigator. After conducting a thirteen-year investigation, Jambert believed that Émile was affiliated with a sex ring operation that prostituted, abused, and murdered many girls in the region.

  Jules was on a roll. “At first, the authorities ignored Jambert’s theories, but an incident in 1984 led them to reconsider the idea that there was indeed a sex ring in the area. In January 1984 someone found a nineteen-year-old girl wandering the streets of Auxerre in a confused state. When the police questioned her, she claimed that she had been held captive in the basement of a nearby house where she had been sexually abused and tortured. The girl’s testimony led the police to the home of Claude and Monique Dunand, known friends of Émile Louis. When they searched the house, they found another girl in the cellar, naked and suspended from a ladder by her wrists. For fifteen years they had been luring local handicapped girls to the house, locking them up, feeding them dog food, and then inviting guests who repeatedly raped and tortured them. However, there was no indication that any of the girls were murdered.”

  “Mon Dieu,” was all Louise could mutter.

  “Claude Dunand eventually received a life sentence in 1991 for kidnapping. His wife, Monique, received two years as accessory to the crimes. Dunand has always maintained that politicians and other influential people were involved but refuses to name them. The police discovered a list of at least fifty clients rumored to include several French notables who paid to torture and abuse captive girls. The police handed the list over to the Auxerre Courthouse. However, the list mysteriously disappeared from a courtroom and has never been found. It was not the only document that went missing. There were more than one hundred murder and missing-person case files from between 1958 and 1982 that vanished from the courthouse. The court ledger documenting the investigations also vanished. It became clear that Auxerre Courthouse either had a serious management problem, or someone was trying to cover up the crimes.”