The Hanged Man's Tale, page 22
“When did you get back?” Maurice handed him the extra cup. “Take it. We weren’t expecting you quite so soon.”
“Thanks,” said Mazarelle, putting his mug down. “I’ve got mine already.”
“So when did they lift your suspension?” A concerned look flashed across Maurice’s face. “They did lift your suspension, right?”
Mazarelle smiled. “Not exactly. I missed you guys. I wanted to find out what you were up to.”
“I can tell you,” Jeannot announced, coming in the door. “The minute you left, Cap had us working our butts off.”
“It probably did you good,” said Mazarelle.
Jeannot pumped his outstretched hand enthusiastically. “Glad to see you, chief. It may not have been long, but you were missed.”
“Here, finish this,” Mazarelle cut him off abruptly, handing him his coffee. “Don’t go getting cheesy on me.” He eyed the biker’s getup Jeannot was wearing with a puzzled look. The sunglasses, the blue shorts, the blue helmet, the blue T-shirt with the name belleview bleus bc emblazoned on it with a cheery slogan: “Allez les Bleus!”
“Another undercover job like the one we had on July fourteenth?”
“You’re joking.” Jeannot pointed to the name on his chest. “It’s my bike club. I’ve got a new Ridley with a Fenix SL carbon frame.”
“That’s how you get to work these days?”
“Coming and going. Best of all, it keeps me in shape. And I can lock it up right downstairs in the courtyard.”
Mazarelle said, “If you’re not careful someone comes off the street with a pick—and your bike is gone!”
Jeannot turned to Cap. “Be right back. I’ve got to go downstairs to change.”
Mazarelle watched him go, smiling wryly.
“Don’t worry,” Maurice assured him. “It’s his latest girlfriend—so to speak. He doesn’t let her out of his sight for more than a heartbeat.”
“They last longer that way,” Mazarelle said glumly. “Girlfriends can get bored. Or disappear.”
He looked around the office, taking in the stacks of papers—the interviews, the murder book notes.
“So, what’ve you got?”
Maurice shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Look, boss, you know how much you mean to us. But you really shouldn’t be here.”
Mazarelle gave him a slow grin, and said nothing. He’d let Maurice come to his decision in his own time.
Maurice shook his head.
“We can’t.”
Still Mazarelle kept his silence.
“I didn’t work this hard to get myself fired.”
“Okay, sure.” Mazarelle got up to go. “By the way, did your son get that kepi blanc?”
Maurice had forgotten the white hat that had arrived by express Chronopost from the Legion. He couldn’t keep the smile from his face.
“Oh, my god,” Maurice said, “my wife wanted me to thank you for your present. She’s never seen our boy so happy. Since your kepi arrived, he hasn’t stopped marching around the house like a young recruit.”
“I’m glad he likes it.”
“He wouldn’t go to sleep last night unless we let him wear the damn thing to bed!”
“I thought he might like to pretend he was a legionnaire.”
“Loves it. Though it’s not exactly the career his mother and I had in mind for him.” Maurice smiled. “But thanks, boss. Nice of you to send it.”
Maurice stared at his suspended boss for a long moment. Then, with a sigh of surrender, he patted Mazarelle’s chair.
With a contented grin, Mazarelle sank his ample frame into the seat behind his desk.
“So give me the rundown.”
Before Maurice could say anything, the door to the office slammed open, and Jeannot was back, standing in the doorway.
“We’ve been busting our asses,” he announced with a grin.
Maurice drew himself up. “Actually, we have done quite a lot in the past few days. We’ve interviewed the other tenants at the Château Saint-Germain. We even called in Frank Nash, who told us you’d questioned him in Marseille. We’ve talked to almost everyone on the suspect list except Nico Manfredi—the racing car hotshot. Tracking him down hasn’t been a picnic. He’s got a long list of lady friends, drugs, you name it. But no one, including his wife, seems to know where he is.”
Jeannot jumped in. “As for the husband, Lavoisier, we talked with him after the autopsy. There’s nothing there. He didn’t seem to be jealous about her love affairs at all. In fact, he was actually on the deed for that apartment. I guess they really did have an open marriage and…”
At the other end of the office, Maurice’s intercom suddenly came alive.
“Captain Kalou?”
It was Coudert’s assistant. Maurice walked to his desk and flipped the switch.
“Yes? Yes? What is it, Nicolas?”
“The patron would like to see you, Captain. Would you please stop by his office this morning at eleven?”
“Bien sûr. I’ll be there.”
The cloud hanging over Maurice’s face as he walked back to his teammates only increased their anxiety. They looked at one another nervously. Noticing their concern, Maurice tried to brush it aside. “Nothing to worry about. I suppose he wants an update on our investigation. I’ll take care of it.”
Turning to Mazarelle, Maurice said, “He hasn’t bothered us until now…”
“He probably just needs to be reassured. As for me, Maurice, I’d better get the hell out of here. I’m thinking I’ll take the back way.”
“Good idea!” said Jeannot. “I’ll give you a heads-up. See if the coast is clear.”
57
It wasn’t until he was outside the building, walking along the small book stalls on the banks of the Seine, that the thought hit him. In fact, it was the handwritten manuscript dangling from one stall, some kind of nineteenth-century legal document fluttering in the breeze, that reminded him. A deed of sale.
Lavoisier had told Jeannot he was the owner of Claire’s apartment. But he had told Mazarelle he didn’t even know it existed. So which was it? If Lavoisier really had a deed, then he probably had a copy of the key to the apartment. Which would let him in with no sign of forced entry. They needed to talk to Armand Lavoisier again. He called Jeannot on his mobile and told him to contact Claire’s husband. Ask him to come in for some questions.
But Armand Lavoisier was at the Deauville Film Festival and would be there for several days, according to Emily, his housekeeper. Jeannot repeated the details of his exchange with Emily to Mazarelle. She’d reported that she herself was about to leave for a short vacation. She’d tell Monsieur Lavoisier that Lieutenant Jean Villepin of the Brigade Criminelle wanted him to call when he returned.
“When did you say that would be?” Jeannot had asked.
“Early next week. Monsieur is serving on the jury of the film festival.”
“Tell him it’s important.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to say you called. Does he have your number?”
Jeannot had given her his number.
“Is this about madame’s death? It was so awful. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Don’t forget,” he’d urged her. “Tell him I’m expecting his call.”
* * *
—
That they wouldn’t be able to question Claire’s husband until he returned to Paris annoyed Mazarelle. He was now following two trails—the Legion and the husband. Although there was no help for it, he was painfully aware that the farther they got from the first two or three days after the murders, the colder their trails were becoming.
But thinking the matter over he realized that the husband’s absence had given him an opportunity he hadn’t expected. And so, later that day he parked his car not far from the Lavoisiers’ house in the First Arrondissement. They lived very close to the headquarters of the Banque de France with its tapestries and Galerie dorée. He was amused at the proximity to the original settlement of the city of Paris. Its red-hot center, so to speak. How like Claire, Mazarelle thought. Putting herself where the money was.
Their house had a dark walnut double door that glowed as if it had been regularly polished for years. Mazarelle rang the bell. He could hear the sound tintinnabulating as it darted from room to room looking for someone to answer. He banged on the door. It didn’t seem as if anyone was inside, so no problem—any more than the door itself. Checking the lovely old metalwork on the lock, he found the lock pick he needed and slipped it effortlessly into the keyhole. Mazarelle passed through the door as if it didn’t exist.
The living room’s parquet floor gleamed. And with the sunlight pouring in from the street, there was no trouble finding his way around. He wanted to make short work of checking the premises and getting out before he discovered the house wasn’t empty. The white suits had been there, but apparently had found nothing. There was a circular staircase leading up to the floor above. Mazarelle pulled on his latex gloves and hurried upstairs.
What was it he was looking for in their bedroom? He didn’t really know for sure. Anything that might be helpful. He remembered something his wife had once told him when he asked about her friend Juliette’s marriage to Fabriani. She’d laughed and said, “Don’t ask. Who knows about other people’s marriages?” At the time he wondered if it was good advice or simply an evasion. Now it was Claire’s marriage that he was wondering about. Uncomfortably he thought maybe he was just being prurient.
In the master bedroom, the two of them shared a king-size bed that was bookended by two large walk-in closets. The first was Claire’s. He’d know that delicious smell anywhere. And the bright colors. A dazzle of dresses none of which he’d ever seen her wear or would. And all her jackets and skirts hung with exquisite care. They’d been neatly arranged as if tagged and alphabetized. They’d never get lost the way he’d lost her. Lost the way Mazarelle now felt himself, as he began to have increasing doubts about why he’d come here at all.
He noticed the blue silk jacket she’d worn that first day they’d met in his office. But where was the large gold pin she had on? He opened the bottom drawer of the small bureau against the wall, and there was her emerald-colored jewelry box. Her gold sunburst with its turquoise core was on top of the trove. It had looked even more beautiful on her lapel. Mazarelle dug into Claire’s treasury but there was no sign of her precious pendant—the oiseau. He closed the box and hurried across to her husband’s closet, glancing out the window as he passed it.
Across the street, someone was looking up at the house. He had seen him before. Then he realized where. It was the bald-headed man waiting outside Coudert’s office. Was he one of the patron’s lackeys? Was Mazarelle being followed? What did Coudert himself have to do with any of this? Clearly, his time was running out.
Inside her husband’s closet the colors were dark—muted blacks, blues, and charcoal grays, with an occasional zinc white thrown in. Mazarelle’s hands went instantly to Lavoisier’s blue blazer, the one he’d worn the day she was murdered. His fingers sped through the pockets. At first he found nothing more than a crumpled handkerchief that might have been used to dry Lavoisier’s tears. But there was one more unexpected pocket—a second inside one. Narrow. Hard to get into for someone with hands as large as his. He forced three fingers in and pulled out a sealed white envelope with no address.
Mazarelle sat down on the bed. Hesitated a moment and then ripped the envelope open.
Et voilà. Claire’s Oiseau de Paradis! The pendant’s gold clasp broken as if it had been torn from her soigné neck before it too was broken. How could anyone have done that to her, least of all her husband? Mazarelle didn’t think he had the physical strength, or the cruelty, or the evil in him. Where was his love? He angrily stuffed the envelope back in Lavoisier’s pocket.
Leaving the closet, he glanced quickly down at the empty street. There was no sign of the baldy. Could he have been mistaken? Either way, he was running out of time.
He hurried downstairs, hoping he had enough time to check out Lavoisier’s study. Above the desk, a black-and-white blowup from a G. W. Pabst silent film Pandora’s Box—the story of the seductive Lulu, a young woman whose raw sensuality led to tragedy—and a date with Jack the Ripper. In Pabst’s film, Lulu was played by the American actress Louise Brooks, a stunner with black patent leather bangs. Henri Langlois, the French film historian, once said, “There is no Garbo, there is no Dietrich, there is only Louise Brooks.” Mazarelle thought Claire, who looked a bit like Brooks, was even more beautiful.
Turning from the poster, Mazarelle gave a little shiver. Claire had ended up like Lulu. Another flower ripped out of the earth. With a sigh, he poked through the large modern desk. Its deep drawers intrigued him. Did Lavoisier keep his personal letters there or somewhere else in the house?
In the bottom drawer he found something. A small beat-up green cardboard box held together by two thick rubber bands. On its surface the message: “Tarot of Marseilles.” Beneath it, “Seventy-eight cards.” He immediately searched through the deck for number XII, the Hanged Man, the familiar inverted figure with his long hair hanging down. Where the hell was it? Losing patience, Mazarelle began to count the cards in the deck. There were seventy-seven and no Hanged Man. Was it missing or had he miscounted? It wasn’t proof of anything, but…
He’d begun counting again when he heard the front doorbell shriek in alarm. He slammed the cards into their box, snapped the rubber bands around it, and tossed the deck back into the drawer. The doorbell rang again, more insistently this time. He could feel the shock through his entire body. He had to get out of there now.
Mazarelle fled through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and lucked out when he came to a door that led to the backyard. Fumbling with the lock, he finally opened it and rushed out, ran up the block, and raced around the corner to his car.
As he drove back to his apartment, Mazarelle was overwhelmed by the implications of what he’d found in Lavoisier’s house. How could he have been so blind? He’d understood that Claire’s husband was jealous of Frank Nash. But he couldn’t imagine Lavoisier killing his wife. Yet…
At the next red light, Mazarelle called the office and spoke to Maurice. Told him he’d found some new evidence in the Lavoisier house in the First Arrondissement. Evidence that the white suits had missed. Told him that he thought it could help their case.
“Sounds interesting,” Maurice said. “But if you bring it in, you know we can’t use it.”
Mazarelle chuckled. “I wasn’t going to remove anything there. I’m suspended, Maurice. But you certainly can. It’s all still there. Take one or two of our guys with you and get over to their house as soon as you can.”
Describing the two items he wanted, Mazarelle gave Maurice specific instructions about where to find them. Then, as an afterthought, he asked him to get her husband’s toothbrush from his bathroom, or any other item there that might have DNA.
“And keep it virgin until you give it to the ME. Okay, Cap?”
“Got it.”
Which was when Mazarelle realized that he was almost home. He parked his car and went upstairs to pour himself a very large, very smooth snifter of Delamain XO Pale and Dry. Now he would sit back, sip his brandy, and wait to see what happened when Lavoisier returned.
58
The next day Mazarelle couldn’t stay away from 36. When he got to the office early in the morning, he was surprised to find Jeannot already there. Fixed to his computer screen as if pasted to it.
“What are you doing?” Mazarelle asked him. “Have you been here all night?”
Jeannot glanced over his shoulder and crooked his finger at Mazarelle, calling him over. “Check this out, boss. You’ve got to see this.”
The screen showed some ominous images. The shattered windows of a Jewish bakery on the edge of the city. A headline about a swastika and a late-night attack. Mazarelle leaned in for a closer look.
“No, no,” said Jeannot. “Not that one. This one.” His finger jabbed at the other side of the monitor.
Flashes were going off, as a Figaro news video tracked a chic tanned couple walking arm in arm on the red carpet waving at a crowd of smiling fans. The two of them were at opening night at the Deauville American Film Festival. The white-haired Canal+ executive, Armand Lavoisier, in black tie and tuxedo—a rosette in his buttonhole—resuming his public life as a member of the festival jury. On his arm, his new girlfriend, the stunning young Tunisian starlet Yasmine Duvall. She wore a sweeping white gown with a startling neckline that plunged to her navel. Around her throat, a single chain of gold and in her hand a bold print clutch.
Jeannot pointed to the screen. “There he is! The grieving husband not long after the tragic murder of his wife. What do you think, boss?”
Mazarelle suggested he calm down. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
“Look at the cleavage on that woman!”
Mazarelle laughed. “Anything else you’ve discovered?”
“How about the pieces of evidence you asked us to bring back from Lavoisier’s house,” Jeannot wondered aloud. “Will they be enough to rattle her husband?”
“I certainly hope so. If Maurice hasn’t scared him off already.”
Jeannot said, “He knows we’re expecting him here in Paris this morning at ten. I warned him, ‘Don’t be late.’ He didn’t like that. I suppose we’ve cut short his time in Deauville with his new girlfriend. He complained that he’d already answered your questions once. Wasn’t that enough?”
Mazarelle smiled. “I’d say he sounds a little cranky. Probably a good start for interviewing him.”
Jeannot nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
* * *
