The Hanged Man's Tale, page 13
“Some. I wish there was more. We’re working around the clock as it is.”
“Is it true what I hear”—his old boss cut to the chase—“that you’ve been hanging around with the press, Mazarelle? What’s that all about?”
Startled, Mazarelle wondered how the hell he knew about Claire. A stoolie, he supposed. Fabriani probably had an army of them working for him au noir.
His host locked eyes with him. “My advice to you, my friend, is take care of business. You’ve got your own case to look after. Not somebody else’s. Be smart.”
Mazarelle was tempted to ask him what the hell that meant. But why bother? Rather than wait for the elevator and risk more of Fabriani’s bullshit, Mazarelle decided on the stairs.
32
To Laure, Mazarelle filled the entrance to L’Agence AB with the odor of bad news. He wasn’t expected. She glanced up at him through hooded eyes and said, “It’s good to see you again, Commandant. Should I tell Luc you’re here?”
“S’il vous plaît, mademoiselle.”
Luc Fournel had been told who was waiting for him and thought he knew why. Fournel appeared perfectly calm, poised, even elegant, with one hand in the jacket pocket of his bespoke glen plaid suit, a lighted cigarette hanging negligently in the other. He reminded Mazarelle of a self-portrait by the German artist Max Beckmann. Painted in a tuxedo and black tie as the well-heeled roué. Though Luc had to leave shortly, he said he was glad to see Mazarelle.
“In that case,” Mazarelle said, “you can help me on one point. Did your agency ever do any work for the magazine Paris-Flash?”
Fournel thought that was possible. But it was the sort of work that Alain would have done, and the magazine’s deputy editor, Philippe Riche, would have commissioned. The sort that made the agency profitable.
“A long way from the old precinct.” Mazarelle nodded.
“I don’t miss it.” Luc’s laugh reminded the commandant of an automatic weapon going off. “Especially the mingy money.”
“Fabriani, on the other hand, misses you in his unit.” Mazarelle described the dinner party that he was invited to the night before by their old boss. “He certainly spoke highly of you.”
“That was nice of him.”
“He called you a hero.”
“Full of compliments, wasn’t he? He never invited me for dinner.”
“He said you even got a medal. Saved someone’s life,” he said, “while in the Foreign Legion.”
“Oh that! Ancient history. What a memory! That was years ago, during basic training.”
Mazarelle took out his pipe and began filling it with Philosophe. He lighted up. “What happened?” he asked.
“Who remembers? We were kids then. Short pants.” Fournel, ambling down memory lane for the moment, was simply pleased to be asked about the past, pleased to have a sympathetic ear. He supposed that it must have happened on their long hike. The trek that all the new recruits had to take before graduation. “We called it the ballbuster.”
Mazarelle asked, “How long?”
Searching through his past for a number, Fournel shrugged. “Very long. Endless…and soon we were all feeling like dead men walking. All of us traveling full kit. Toting weight over distance on the marshy trail because it had been raining nonstop all along the Bouches-du-Rhône. And the guy next to me—almost as large as you are, Mazarelle—slips down the muddy riverbank, and falls into the fast-moving ice-cold water. His backpack caught by a fallen tree limb, he was pinned beneath it.”
Fournel recounted diving into the muddy glacial water, catching hold of the drowning legionnaire, and very nearly drowning himself. Freeing the guy’s backpack, Fournel dragged him to shore.
“No wonder you got a medal.” Mazarelle was impressed. The smoke streamed out of his lighted pipe as if from a rising rocket. “Was he a friend of yours?”
“Never saw him before in my life.”
“You didn’t even know his name?”
“Copain. That’s all I needed. ‘Hang on, copain!’ ”
Mazarelle rolled his eyes in disbelief. Did Fournel take him for a fool?
“You’re joking? You mean you risked your life for a stranger?”
“We were comrades, Mazarelle. You know what the corps’ motto is? Legio Patria Nostra.”
“Meaning?”
“Forgotten your Latin, Mazarelle?” he mocked. “That’s one for the confession box the next time you’re in church.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
33
The call from an unfamiliar number came into the office at the Brigade Criminelle the next morning. Transferred by the Préfecture Centrale. Jeannot had picked up the ringing phone, and listening, his eyes widened.
“Ah, chef…” Jeannot hesitated.
“Spit it out.”
“Ah, well, I have some bad news.”
The missing Mercedes-Benz—the crime scene itself—had surfaced. Someone had spotted it on the rue Heurtault in Aubervilliers, a commune outside Paris. A baker, driving by on the Périphérique, on his way to make the dinner tarts.
The only problem—the car was on fire.
According to the baker, he had seen the black C-300 starting to smoke, the first flames licking at the edges.
Mazarelle grabbed the phone from Jeannot.
“What’s the condition of the car?” he shouted into the receiver.
“Sais pas,” the baker replied. “How should I know the condition of the car?”
Mazarelle growled. “The usual way? You’ve got eyes?”
“I’m trying to help you out, buddy. All I know is, that fire was just getting going when I drove by. If you put any dough in there, it wouldn’t last long.”
Mazarelle slammed down the phone and turned to Jeannot.
“Let’s go. We’ve got to see that Mercedes.”
With the sirens blaring, they made it in minutes.
Slamming their doors shut, Mazarelle and Jeannot hurried over to the car. Flames were shooting skyward as they tried to peer in the windows. The glass was already darkened by the smoke and soot.
Taking off his jacket, Mazarelle smashed it down, trying to beat back the flames.
Sparks flew.
He slammed the coat against the car again and again. Ignoring the temperature, he kept going, his arm windmilling against the blaze. The heat was brutal.
On the other side, Jeannot was doing the same, faster if anything.
But the fire kept growing. Minutes went by. Finally, overcome by the heat, they stepped back to rest.
The explosion was eardrum shattering. Pieces of the car went rocketing skyward. Like a volcano throwing up lava, shooting balls of fire flew off in all directions. Not quite sure how it happened, Mazarelle and Jeannot found themselves flat on their backs. They did their best to curl up and avoid the flying debris. A fender came hurtling over and slammed off Jeannot’s hip.
Mazarelle wrapped his burly forearms around the dazed young man and dragged him away from the flames.
In the distance, they could hear the sirens of the pompiers. Arriving too late.
Mazarelle wanted to keep looking. Maybe some small clue, something useful, could have survived in the rubble.
Seated, rubbing his hip, Jeannot gave a sad smile.
“Honestly, boss. It’s fried like bacon. Whatever evidence there was is long gone.”
34
It was barely dawn when the pounding started. Whomp. Whomp. Whomp. The wooden slats sliding back and forth. The cord bending around the pulley.
On the first floor of a stylish small home in the heart of Paris, in the center of a gleaming wood parquet floor, a figure was up on a NordicTrack machine, his legs grinding, his breath ragged.
Even this early in the morning, sweating hard, Armand Lavoisier was impeccable—his distinguished salt-and-pepper coiffure, his buffed nails, the rich maroon velour of his YSL tracksuit. For a man in his sixties, the Canal+ executive was well tended. He had to be to keep up with his wife.
Two and a half decades separated them, the studio executive and the young editor. They had recently been called the power couple of the French media. It was no secret that he had bankrolled her magazine.
Showered and changed into an immaculate linen suit, with a burgundy breast pocket square, he strolled into the dining room to give his wife a kiss. He wondered where she was going and why she looked so radiant. He wondered where breakfast was.
* * *
—
Even at this early hour, Claire Girard too was impeccable. The sun streaming in through the dining room windows lent her a halo that limned her long black curls. Her glowing tan was heightened by her cream-colored jacket, her black T-shirt, a gold necklace that sparkled in the morning light.
Claire was at the dining room table, gathering up copies of Paris-Flash, when their housekeeper, Emily, came hurrying in the door. She had been to the boulangerie on the rue Coquillière. The croissants and brioches were still warm from the oven, and they smelled heavenly. Emily bustled about pouring their coffee.
As soon as Claire saw her husband come in, she waved a dummy copy of her magazine’s upcoming issue at him and tossed it over. The cover lines in red caps read:
THE WINNER: LANCE ARMSTRONG
THE CHARGE: DOPING
THE LOSER: TOUR DE FRANCE
Mopping a few drops of sweat off his forehead, Armand congratulated her. They’d sell tons of copies. “Wasn’t your writer the one who called Armstrong ‘a cancer on cycling’?” he asked. “That’s gotten a lot of play.”
“Yes.” Claire smiled. “No one else got inside his U.S. Postal team the way we did.” As a result, all the last day she’d been hassled by their lawyer threatening to sue the magazine.
“That’s the price you pay. Here I am trying to make this scandal sheet into something we can be proud of. A journal with real investigative pieces.”
Armand nodded sympathetically.
“It’s not easy. Especially when we keep getting ignored. Remember that piece we did last year. The detention centers—all those refugees behind bars—a tragedy waiting to happen. But no one was interested.”
“It didn’t change much, did it?”
“No, it didn’t. But this summer, there are protests planned all over France. Left wing, right wing. They all want to shut those centers down.”
“Really?”
Claire wagged her finger at him.
“You’ll see.”
He tilted his head to the side inquiringly.
“You remember the American politician I mentioned, Frank Nash? I’m picking him up at the Lutetia in an hour. We’re driving up to the Sangatte camp near Calais. They’ve been having all sorts of trouble there.”
“You really think they’ll let you in after that last article?”
“The American Embassy arranged it all. I’m along for the ride. A quick overnight.”
“You have a plan?”
Claire’s smile broadened.
“Just wait.”
Armand spread out his hands in surrender to her charm. “You’re even more delightful when you’re mysterious.”
On the whole, he wasn’t inclined to be jealous. And since there was such a difference in their ages, he wanted to make sure that she had all the freedom she needed. Armand understood that a woman her age married to an older man might need more than her husband provided. However, what Armand knew, and Claire soon discovered, was that if there was any lopsidedness in their relationship it had long been on his side of the marriage bed, not hers. Often away on business, Armand had a fondness for other women that seemed almost insatiable. Still, on that morning, as Claire drove off to meet the charming young Nash in her gleaming black Porsche 911 Carrera with the top down and a dazzling red scarf over her head, he felt something new—a twinge of vulnerability perhaps. Was he getting old?
Inside his study, Armand closed the door and, picking up his mobile, began to tap.
35
Mazarelle hadn’t needed an alarm clock to wake up since he was a schoolkid. But the morning after the fire, he could have used one. It had been a terrible night. He thought he had gotten off unscathed, but when his feet hit the floor, he felt like the foul rag-and-bone shop of the universe. Limping over to the bathroom, he dragged himself under the shower—not so much to clean up as to wake up. The hot water unlocking his muscles. The mustache in his bathroom mirror one or two gray hairs older. Later, in the half-empty refrigerator, he found breakfast—a box of succulent black Turkish apricots and, on the stove, a double shot of jet-black espresso. A curtain-raiser for his day.
He didn’t get into the office until after 10 a.m.
Jeannot was very glad to see him. “Where’ve you been, boss? I’ve been trying to reach you everywhere.”
“Here I am,” Mazarelle said, presenting himself palms up and totally available. “What’s going on? Not another discovery?” Mazarelle didn’t smile, but Jeannot had come to appreciate his chief’s little jokes.
“Maybe. But this time I think we may have a live one.”
“Sounds good. Let’s hear it.”
“Didn’t you say that Guy Danglars told you he left the Café Arielle with the murder victim when it closed? And that he was home in bed about two?”
“That was it, more or less. Luc Fournel left earlier. And after all the partying, Guy was pretty much wiped out himself. Why do you ask?”
“Look here.” Jeannot called the boss over to his desk and pointed at the computer screen where he’d been working. He’d been examining the digitized police fichier for traffic violations across the different arrondissements in Paris. Cited in the Twelfth on the early morning of July 20, 2002, was a fender bender in front of the Gare de Lyon. The driver of the car was Guy Danglars. “If that’s our Guy Danglars,” Jeannot said, “he wasn’t home at all. He was stopped, questioned, and nearly arrested that morning at four thirteen a.m. for ‘conduite sous l’influence de l’alcool.’ ”
“Good catch!” said Mazarelle. Turning to Maurice, who’d been standing at his side, he said, “See if you can track down the owner of the car that Danglars damaged. And find out who else saw the accident that morning—anything that might be helpful.”
In what seemed no time, Maurice was back with the names of two eyewitnesses, and he’d already arranged for them to talk with the commandant.
* * *
—
The first witness was Jean-Pierre Bonnaire. Mazarelle thanked him for coming in so promptly. Bonnaire had been waiting for his train at the Gare de Lyon that night after spending the holiday in Paris, but there had been a delay due to equipment failure.
“I was standing out front, smoking a cigarette, watching the police rounding up these homeless guys. Must’ve been from one of those immigrant camps they shut down. Anyway, that’s when the yellow Renault came along. A supermini. It pulled into the space between the two cars parked at the curb, and a tall guy with his hood up leaped out. Yelling something to the driver and racing through the rain into the station. I caught a glimpse of him as he hurried by—a tanned, leathery-skinned skyscraper mec with fierce black eyes. Well—you don’t see one of those every day. So I wondered who he was and why in such a hurry.
“When I looked inside the terminal, he was standing in front of the information board of arrivals and departures. Then I saw these three dark teenage kids come up behind him. Gyppos scrounging for money. I’ll never forget the look on his face. Pure contempt. I wondered if maybe he knew them. Or if not, was there something about them that he recognized and loathed?
“Then I heard him shouting at them. I couldn’t tell what the hell it was, but it was loud and it wasn’t French. Whatever it was they were scared. I mean, you know, really, shitting-in-your-pants scared. Slowly they began backing away from him, and then all at once the three of them bolted toward the door.”
“How about the accident?” Mazarelle asked.
“It was when I turned that I saw the collision. The one I told the cops about. The little yellow supermini that the hoodie had just gotten out of was being bumped into by this big classy car behind him as he tried to park. Two! Three times! Either the guy behind had lost control or didn’t care. I think the driver of the mini must have eventually gotten pissed at having his sporty little car turned into a piñata. Suddenly he shoved his clutch into reverse, floored the gas, and went roaring back into the Renault Laguna Estate behind him. It made quite a thunderclap.”
* * *
—
The second witness, Etienne Regnard, was an older man—the driver of the Laguna Estate.
The commandant thanked him for taking his valuable time. Could he provide them with information about the incident that involved his vehicle, a Renault Laguna, and a yellow Renault Clio hatchback, an incident that occurred early on the morning of July 20 in front of the Gare de Lyon?
“Certainly. I’ll try my best,” said Monsieur Regnard. “My wife and I had pulled up in front of the station. We had dropped off her brother who was planning to catch a four fifty a.m. train home. We were about to leave when this little canary-colored sports car cut in front of our Laguna Estate, blocking our way. Without warning, he slammed back into us. It seemed as if he’d wanted to pull out and by mistake put his car in reverse.”
Mazarelle asked if there had been much damage to his vehicle.
“Alors—it sounded pretty serious. So I got out to see what had happened. My wife did too. Fortunately it wasn’t as bad as we thought. Only my side mirror had been seriously damaged—cracked and broken off. I was thinking that guy was going to have seven years of bad luck. That was his first mistake. But then he got out and began complaining to me. That was his second. His third was the way he smelled. It was as if he’d spent the last twenty-four hours marinated in whiskey. No sooner did my wife notice the alcohol on his breath, than she began to scream, ‘Vous êtes bourré alors?’ ”
