Crime Fraiche (17 page)
Authors: Alexander Campion
CHAPTER 29
A
pparently, an uninterrupted breakfast was something that was just not going to happen at Maulévrier. Yet again, just as Capucine had dropped a lump of sugar in her café au lait, Gauvin crept up to tell her in his usual whisper charged with suppressed excitement that the “police were on the line.” Maybe the solution was just to have Gauvin serve her breakfast in the cloakroom and be done with it.
pparently, an uninterrupted breakfast was something that was just not going to happen at Maulévrier. Yet again, just as Capucine had dropped a lump of sugar in her café au lait, Gauvin crept up to tell her in his usual whisper charged with suppressed excitement that the “police were on the line.” Maybe the solution was just to have Gauvin serve her breakfast in the cloakroom and be done with it.
It was the receptionist at the commissariat who announced that Isabelle wanted to talk to Capucine and was going into her office with David so they could use her speakerphone. As she waited, she put her legs on the table and tipped the chair back. She missed Isabelle admiring her calves and David her shoes. Of course, there wouldn’t have been all that much to check out that morning. She was wearing an old pair of tweed trousers; a long, drooping, belted tan cashmere cardigan; and clunky square-heeled walking shoes. All very un-Paris and un–Police Judiciaire. The cardigan would have made wearing her service pistol impossible.
Isabelle’s strident voice burst into her reflections. “Commissaire. Commissaire! Are you there?” Then, “Merde, David, this fucking thing doesn’t work.”
“Yes, it does, Isabelle. I can hear you perfectly. You don’t have to shout. Hi, David! So what’s going on?”
“There’s been another one.”
“Another one, what? A Belle episode?”
“Exactly. This time she ripped off Jean-Marie Lavallé.”
“You mean the movie actor? The one who did all those cape and sword films in the sixties and seventies? I didn’t think he was still around.”
“He is. Totally. He’s only in his seventies. Healthy as a horse. Just maybe a little less rich.” The two brigadiers’ snickering sounded like static on the line.
Capucine ached to be in the room. She missed Paris very much indeed.
“So he has this killer apartment on the quai de Montebello,” Isabelle continued. “You know, just across the river from Notre Dame. There’s this long terrace, and every single last room looks out over the cathedral—”
“Back up a minute. Where did she pick him up?”
“I told you.”
“No, you didn’t, Isabelle,” David said.
“Okay, asshole. Commissaire, it was at the flower and bird market. On the Ile de la Cité. The place we always used to take our sandwiches when we worked at the Quai. What I didn’t know is that they get rid of the flowers on Sundays and just sell birds.”
“Everybody in Paris knows that,” David said with disdain.
“Anyway,” Isabelle continued, “she did her fainting routine just at the end of the market, you know, where they have one of those new municipal bicycle stands, the kind where you rent the bicycle for the day and turn it in anywhere you want.”
“That sweetie must have brass balls,” David said. “You can see that spot from the windows of thirty-six fucking quai des fucking Orfèvres. I mean the entire
Crim’
could have been looking down at her. She must know we’re hot after her, and she still doesn’t give a shit.”
Crim’
could have been looking down at her. She must know we’re hot after her, and she still doesn’t give a shit.”
“So, anyway,” Isabelle continued, “along comes Jean-Marie Lavallé, all slim and spry, you know, with the hair jelled back, and the open collar, and the trendy intellectual glasses with no frames, looking like he’s going off to some TV show to be totally suave and ageless—”
“Isabelle, get on with it.”
“So he finds La Belle lying on the sidewalk. It seems he’s just bought some goddamn bird at the market, something called a Chardonneret Mullet, which he explained is a goldfinch crossed with a canary, and sings more beautifully than any other bird, and just happens to be totally illegal. He wants this bird to put in his kitchen so it can sing to him when he cooks, which he says is just about the thing he likes to do most in life.”
“Sure, that’s the thing he likes most,” interjected David. Capucine could see the daggers Isabelle shot him with her look as clearly as if she had been in the room.
“So he’s walking along, swinging his little cage with his little bird chirping away, and finds La Belle napping happily and says to himself, ‘Hey, what a poor sweet thing. I’ll just take this little bit of cuteness home with me and nurse her back to health. It’ll be cool. She can keep my little bird company.’ ”
Capucine’s impatience got the better of her. “And she stays three or four days and then hoofs it, right? What did she take?”
“A small chest made of copper filigree beaten into a tortoise shell. He must have a thing about endangered species,” David said.
“It’s called Boulle marquetry,” Isabelle interjected. “The guy who cooked up the technique was someone by the name of André-Charles Boulle. He worked back in the early seventeen hundreds.”
“This wasn’t an original Boulle piece, was it? If it was, it would belong in the Louvre. It would be her biggest hit yet,” Capucine said.
“Yeah, that’s the funny part,” David said. Capucine could hear him rattling a piece of paper. “In the original
procès-verbal
taken down by the uniformed officer who received his initial complaint, he said it was worth twenty-five thousand euros. But when we called his insurance company, he had it listed on his policy as a copy valued at three thousand. Our guess is that he jacked up the value because there was something inside the chest and he wants the insurance company to cover that, too.”
procès-verbal
taken down by the uniformed officer who received his initial complaint, he said it was worth twenty-five thousand euros. But when we called his insurance company, he had it listed on his policy as a copy valued at three thousand. Our guess is that he jacked up the value because there was something inside the chest and he wants the insurance company to cover that, too.”
“Like, say, a big wad of cash he needed to keep handy in case he wanted to score something fun to stick up his nose,” Isabelle added.
“But, of course, he’s not going to press charges. Oh, no. All he wants is a police statement certifying the burglary so he can hit the insurance company,” David said.
“If it really was cash,” Capucine said, “it’s interesting she took the chest as well. Look, I need you two to interview Lavallé and get a decent deposition. Also, get the best physical description you can. Focus on what she was wearing when he picked her up and if she left anything in his apartment after she left. Find out if she said anything, told any stories or whatever, that might be relevant to the investigation. We’ve got to get an arrest quickly. The press is going to have a field day with this. She’s done two celebrities in a row. We’re going to have to move fast, or we’re going to start taking major shit.”
Isabelle was put out. She obviously took this as a criticism of her performance on the case. “ ‘Get an arrest quickly!’ You’ve got to be kidding. This girl is like Fantômas. She doesn’t leave traces. She vanishes into thin air. Her scam is so perfect, her victims don’t even want to press charges.”
“There you go,” Capucine said. “Why don’t you ask Lavallé how to deal with her? His best role was Fantômas. I’m sure he’s got all sorts of insights.”
The receiver was banged down on the speakerphone. It was Capucine’s turn to have gone too far.
CHAPTER 30
E
ven as a child Capucine had thought the gendarmerie building was an eyesore and an affront to the countryside. The fact that she now knew it was the headquarters of the cantonal brigade didn’t do anything to raise it in her esteem. A good-sized tract had been bulldozed out of the forest halfway between Saint-Nicolas and the next village and encircled by a rough-hewn cement wall—in keeping with an architectural vogue that had lasted for all of several minutes back in the seventies. Behind the wall a futuristic glass pillbox-like structure had been erected in the middle of a vast, stark cement lot.
ven as a child Capucine had thought the gendarmerie building was an eyesore and an affront to the countryside. The fact that she now knew it was the headquarters of the cantonal brigade didn’t do anything to raise it in her esteem. A good-sized tract had been bulldozed out of the forest halfway between Saint-Nicolas and the next village and encircled by a rough-hewn cement wall—in keeping with an architectural vogue that had lasted for all of several minutes back in the seventies. Behind the wall a futuristic glass pillbox-like structure had been erected in the middle of a vast, stark cement lot.
Inside, the gendarmerie hummed like a beehive, looking every bit the military installation it was. Gendarmes strode back and forth in crisp blue uniforms that had visibly passed a rigid inspection that morning. It was the antipode of her own commissariat. Capucine had a fond vision of her moody punk detectives slouching over their chaotic desks and asked herself for the thousandth time what on earth she was doing.
At the reception counter she presented her police card and asked a gendarme brigadier-chef for Capitaine Dallemagne. The man somehow managed to come to attention while still sitting in his seat. “Oui, Madame le Commissaire,” he said crisply and spoke inaudibly into a telephone. Within seconds a gendarme brigadier appeared and escorted her, walking so stiffly he was almost marching.
Dallemagne’s office seemed to be even more rigidly disciplined than at her last visit. A capitaine’s kepi, resplendent with silver bands, had been carefully placed in the upper-right-hand corner of the desk, the brim perfectly aligned with the edge of the desk, next to a pair of carefully smoothed brown kid gloves, also laid perfectly parallel to the edge. A single slim official blue file was set in the exact middle of the otherwise empty surface.
Capucine was reminded of Capitaine Renault’s office in
Casablanca,
but she doubted that this was going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Casablanca,
but she doubted that this was going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Dallemagne sat stiffly, only five inches of buttock in contact with the government-issue swivel chair. Without rising, he waved Capucine into one of the two metal seats in front of his desk.
“Madame, I believe you owe me an apology.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“As well you should. I understand you issued a formal complaint about my conduct of the two investigations we discussed. And you did this behind my back. And,” he paused and gave her a particularly malevolent look, “I have it on good authority that, having been officially rebuffed, you had the temerity to invoke your family’s contacts. And you did all this without the slightest heed to the damage it might cause my career. This is conduct unbecoming to an officer. Madame, if you were a man, I would call you a cad and invite you outside for a physical explanation. But as it is, I am simply speechless.”
Which was the last thing he was. Not only had he managed to fire two broadsides before Capucine had even opened her gun ports, but he firmly held the weather gauge. She had underestimated her enemy.
“Capitaine, this is not about careers. It’s about seeing that justice is done—”
“Well said, madame, and your interference has seriously undermined the credibility and authority of the gendarmerie in this canton. The negative consequences of that action to the pursuit of justice are impossible to calculate. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Capitaine, I regret that you have formed this interpretation of the events. However, as it happens, I have received formal instructions from the DCPJ to take charge of these two cases and to avail myself of you and your men for assistance.”
Dallemagne looked at her fixedly for several beats, saying nothing, with no change of expression. He was definitely far better at this sort of thing than she had anticipated. Eventually, he picked up the file on the desk, opened it, and riffled the pages against his thumb and crooked forefinger.
Capucine could see that they were official
procès-verbal
forms used for reporting the statements of witnesses.
procès-verbal
forms used for reporting the statements of witnesses.
“These are eleven PVs that my men and I have collected over the past few days. Bellec, Lisette. Martel, Pierre. Seven workers at the Elevage Vienneau. And the parents of Devere, Clément.” He closed the file and pushed it across the desk toward Capucine. None of the reports were longer than a paragraph, and each stated, in the bland, passive voice of officialdom, that the person interviewed had nothing to report. They were useless in a police inquiry.
In view of her experience over the past few days, Capucine was sure that Dallemagne had been energetic in spreading his rumor that she was a secret minion of the fisc far beyond the people he had interviewed. She was equally sure that he had sent copies of his PVs through the gendarmerie hierarchy, effectively scoring points for his zeal in cooperating with an arrogant sister service. As political tactics went, it was brilliant. He’d effectively sabotaged Capucine’s investigation while making himself look as good as he could under the circumstances. Now all he needed was for her investigation to fall flat on its face. Then he would be entirely vindicated.
Stiffly courteous, Dallemagne walked her to the door of the building. “Madame, it was an honor to have been of service to the Police Judiciaire. If I can be of any further assistance, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”
As she walked slowly back to the Clio, it was abundantly clear to Capucine that any hope for a solution lay far, far outside the box.
CHAPTER 31
S
he told herself, and everyone else, that she needed to go to Paris to deal with the mountain of paperwork that must be sitting on her desk and review the progress of her teams on their cases. She said that because she still hadn’t quite made up her mind.
he told herself, and everyone else, that she needed to go to Paris to deal with the mountain of paperwork that must be sitting on her desk and review the progress of her teams on their cases. She said that because she still hadn’t quite made up her mind.
It turned out to be a long day. The pile on her desk was far more mountainous than she had imagined, and three of her teams were stymied. There was also a pile of “
dans votre absence
” phone message slips as thick as a deck of cards. It was a very long day. At one in the afternoon a uniformed brigadier brought her a
croque-monsieur
and a quarter-liter carafe of Côtes du Rhône from the café at the corner. She ate half the sandwich and sipped a little of the wine while making changes to the duty roster for the next week. The afternoon wore on. Before she knew it, it was 5:45. Now or never.
dans votre absence
” phone message slips as thick as a deck of cards. It was a very long day. At one in the afternoon a uniformed brigadier brought her a
croque-monsieur
and a quarter-liter carafe of Côtes du Rhône from the café at the corner. She ate half the sandwich and sipped a little of the wine while making changes to the duty roster for the next week. The afternoon wore on. Before she knew it, it was 5:45. Now or never.
She picked up the phone and pushed the speed-dial button labeled
MOHAMED BENAROUCHE
.
MOHAMED BENAROUCHE
.
“Do you have a second, Momo?”
“Sure thing, Commissaire.”
Of the three brigadiers she had brought with her from the
Crim’,
two, David and Isabelle, had blossomed, gradually becoming more rounded officers. Only Momo, now that he was in a neighborhood commissariat where petty crime and domestic disputes were far more prevalent than serious felonies, had flopped like a fish out of water. He was a force of nature, a huge North African, physically bigger than David and Isabelle put together. He always reminded Capucine of a Sig service pistol, big, heavy, square, and lethal. Of the three brigadiers, she was most attached to Momo. After all, he had carried her through her terrible first case, sometimes literally. He was the one who had no ambition in life other than to “get her back,” as he liked to say.
Crim’,
two, David and Isabelle, had blossomed, gradually becoming more rounded officers. Only Momo, now that he was in a neighborhood commissariat where petty crime and domestic disputes were far more prevalent than serious felonies, had flopped like a fish out of water. He was a force of nature, a huge North African, physically bigger than David and Isabelle put together. He always reminded Capucine of a Sig service pistol, big, heavy, square, and lethal. Of the three brigadiers, she was most attached to Momo. After all, he had carried her through her terrible first case, sometimes literally. He was the one who had no ambition in life other than to “get her back,” as he liked to say.
Capucine looked up from her file as Momo’s bulk blotted out the light from the hallway. His smile looked out of place in the surly toughness of his pockmarked Moroccan street fighter’s face.
“ ’Sup?” he asked, somehow managing to sound as respectful as if he had added the required “Madame le Commissaire.”
“It’s going to take some explaining. Shut the door and let’s try some of this Calvados I brought back.” The slammed door cracked like a pistol shot as Momo flicked it shut with his foot.
Momo was a practicing Muslim but far from devout enough to renounce alcohol. Quite the contrary. She still kidded him about the time he nearly blew his cover on a stakeout in the Paris Arab ghetto of Barbès by asking for a beer in a café.
Capucine produced a fat bottle marked “Calvados Boulard, Pays d’Auge, Hors d’Age” and two small tumblers from a desk drawer. She poured them both half an inch. Capucine sipped hers. Momo shot his back in one swallow and pursed his lips in an appreciative frown.
“You don’t get this kind of stuff in the cafés where I go,” he said.
Capucine poured a good two inches in his glass. Now that the niceties were over, it was time for a decent drink.
“I’m working on a funny kind of case. In Normandy. I don’t think I should have taken it on in the first place. But I let my pride get the better of me, and now that I’m officially responsible, it turns out I don’t have the resources to solve it. Does this make any sense?”
“Sure. I figured it had to be something like that. You were spending a lot of time in Normandy. Nobody likes apple pie that much.” Momo helped himself to a third shot of the Calvados. He knew perfectly well the whole bottle was intended for him.
“Look, Momo, I need you to do something dangerous for me. I have no right to even think of asking you, and you can refuse if you’re not completely comfortable with the assignment.” Capucine caught herself chirping and noticed that Momo was smiling indulgently, restraining himself from asking her to cut the crap and get on with it.
“Okay, okay, let me explain.”
“Commissaire, I keep telling you, I’m just here for the heavy lifting. Just point me in the right direction and tell me what to do. You don’t have to do no explaining.”
But she did explain at length and told him exactly what she wanted and what risks were involved. When she was done, Momo nodded, downed one more shot of Calvados, and stood up.
“You got it.”
He picked up the bottle, still almost three-quarters full, slid it in his jacket pocket, and clumped out of the office.
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