The Hanged Man's Tale, page 31
“Mazarelle—please!” Fabriani snapped angrily. “You’re the one with lady trouble—they all seem to die on you!”
Silence. Mazarelle sipped his cognac. Stared steadily at Fabriani. It was a low blow, and it hurt. More than he could let on. First Martine, then Claire. But it was also exactly the kind of tactic someone would use to distract him. He was closing in now. He could feel it.
“Well, Claude,” he said coolly. “There is at least one piece of evidence. The phone records Maurice tracked down. The call to the crime lab—about the Mercedes? To undercut our investigation? That came from your office.”
Fabriani’s eyes narrowed.
“And one other thing…”
Mazarelle was on a roll now. “That number I called you on this morning? You were right. I never had the number to that phone. I got it here…”
He tossed a dog-eared phone log on the table.
“See that? Those are the records of Alain Berthaud’s calls. Seems he was calling you a lot. What were the two of you talking about?”
Fabriani slammed his glass down on the table, and swiftly jumped up. “Phone calls? Alors, Mazarelle. Enough. This is all very amusing. But I suggest you look in some other more profitable direction. Right now I’m afraid that I must leave you. I’m expected at the Élysée Palace within the hour. The rumor is that there’s a new appointment in the works.”
He flashed Mazarelle his million-dollar smile.
“But please, stay as long as you like—and certainly finish your cognac.”
Without waiting for a response, Fabriani was out the door.
75
Was it the cocky way Fabriani had left that made Mazarelle’s blood boil? Condescending as his former boss often was, his rude exit shouldn’t have been a surprise. Besides, it did provide a grim satisfaction. Now Mazarelle was more convinced than ever of Fabriani’s guilt.
But proving it was another matter entirely. So many allies, so much power. The gratitude of the president in his back pocket. Mazarelle knew he’d be heading into hazardous territory.
Sitting at his desk, he started to leaf absentmindedly through the letters Juliette had given him back at the fundraiser. The stack of hate mail. He had promised to look through them for her, and had promptly forgotten. At least now they matched the mood he was in. One after another taking potshots at his old boss.
“Law-and-order crap!” the first announced. “They should lock you up.” Couldn’t argue with that.
A second was scrawled in big block letters: “Fascist. Die!” A little extreme, thought Mazarelle. But at least the heart was in the right place. He leafed through to a third, in computer-generated Times Roman font: “I know what you’re up to,” it read.
He smiled and put it down. Me too, he thought. And, just as he was about to turn away, he saw something that made him turn back.
Picking up the letter, he read the rest: “You may be shooting blanks, but I promise I’m not. You will pay now, or you’ll pay later.”
Mazarelle leaned back in his chair, his mouth open. He held the letter up to the light. Nothing distinctive. He put it down next to the Lucite frame. Idly turning the box with the .22 shell again, he watched as the pieces of his case began to reassemble themselves. This was the final piece of the puzzle. The motive.
It wasn’t a hate letter. It was blackmail.
He had been looking at this case in entirely the wrong way—concentrating on the ripoux, their strong-arm tactics, and their small-time cash schemes. But what if, instead of Fabriani’s greed, he focused on the commissaire’s grander aspirations—his desire for political power.
Mazarelle checked the date on the envelope. July 15. One day after the Bastille Day attack, someone had sent this note. Someone who knew about the blanks. Someone who was squeezing Fabriani. Someone like Alain Berthaud.
As anyone close to Fabriani knew, the commissaire was aiming for higher office. He hoped to parlay his police credentials right into the cabinet. And as long as unrest was front and center in the public consciousness, he had a good chance of achieving his goal. In a time of fear and chaos, the president would want to appoint a law-and-order right-hand man. If the news reports were right, Chirac was about to do exactly that.
Fabriani just needed to keep that unrest simmering. Mazarelle could see how he would have set out to do it. For years, the commissaire had been quietly encouraging the ripoux at a deniable distance—working through cutouts like Luc Fournel and Alain Berthaud to exploit a handful of dirty cops and increase his income. But recently, his schemes were larger.
Now Alain Berthaud would have had a new use. As a member of the Défense Nationale, he could help stir up the organization’s thugs, urging them to create more trouble on the streets. Alain must have been the one who recruited young Max. Probably found him in the online chat rooms, and started to groom him—at first, echoing his far right ideologies, and then, little by little, encouraging his crackpot dream of a presidential shooting.
But Fabriani and his men never wanted Max to succeed. Chirac’s well-being was central to their political plans. Which is why they had switched Max’s bullets for blanks. They wanted to create the mood of terror, not actually hurt anyone. It wasn’t politics; it was opportunism. Fabriani was no white supremacist. He was simply ambitious.
The commissaire’s scenario was working—until the free-spending Berthaud chose to cash in. Maybe to live large. Maybe to cover his alimony and childcare expenses. Alain knew Fabriani was about to hit it big. Why shouldn’t he profit too? So, once the Bastille Day shooting was over, he decided that he’d earned a raise. Without telling his partner, Luc, he sent the blackmail letter. Then, one or two days later, he had followed up with a series of calls, putting pressure on the commissaire. Threatening him with exposure of his connection to all the schemes. And Alain had a lot of leverage. A lot to expose.
Luc Fournel would have known better. He would have been more patient. He understood that if he kept calm, big things were in store once the boss moved into the cabinet. All their ripoux income would then seem like chicken feed. So when Fabriani told Luc what his partner was up to, he would have been furious.
Fournel would know immediately what had to be done. Alain had always been too eager, too emotional, too unreliable, too caught up in his politics. If only he had kept his mouth shut. But by then it was too late.
Alain was threatening the goose and the golden eggs. And that would end only one way. With the blackmailer dead. Dangling from a canal bridge. An end to a nuisance—and a warning to the rest of their little group not to get too ambitious. As Mazarelle knew, Luc had precisely the man to take care of the problem.
76
It stuck in Mazarelle’s craw to ask Coudert for help, but he thought that was the only way to go. If he laid out the evidence clearly, Coudert would have to support him.
Jumping out of his car in the parking lot at 36, Mazarelle raced up the steps to the third floor; plowed through the anteroom to Coudert’s office; and, ignoring Nicolas’s outstretched arms, knocked energetically on his patron’s door, opened it, and strode in.
“What is it?” Coudert, about to make a call, looked annoyed at the interruption. “Couldn’t you at least…?”
“No,” said Mazarelle. “No time! This can’t wait. It’s about the murders and the ripoux—”
Coudert broke in. Held up his right hand. Sighed. “Mazarelle—I told you that case is closed. Why are you bringing it up again?”
“Patron, there are reasons it can’t be closed—if you’ll listen.”
“Eh bien, Mazarelle—I’m a rational man. I’m always willing to listen, but I’m afraid that you’re going off half-assed and making a mistake.”
“I don’t think so. Here’s the point. We caught the murderer—but he never had a motive. So who was behind the killings? Who was running the ripoux? The guy at the top has not been fingered. Does not even seem to be in danger of being accused. Or even—”
“Stop—” said Coudert. “Who is it?”
Mazarelle rapped his knuckles on the desk for emphasis.
“Claude Fabriani.”
“Fabriani?” Coudert’s voice went up an octave. His eyes widened in alarm. “Claude Fabriani?! The head of the Fourth?”
“Yes—exactly.”
“Do you know what you’re saying, Mazarelle? The kind of wild accusation you’re making?” Coudert’s face had flamed pink, his astonishment apparent. “How can you begin to make an allegation like that?”
It was the kind of question Mazarelle loved. He opened his palms like a waiter presenting a feast.
“Do you remember what I told you about the black ledger I found in Claire’s pied-à-terre? It’s a record of all the payments for information. It ties all the pieces together—Luc Fournel, Théo Legardère, Guy Danglars—”
Coudert, about to cut Mazarelle off, hesitated. Closed his eyes. He didn’t like to admit it, but he was curious.
“Is Fabriani actually mentioned there? Is he in Claire Girard’s ledger?”
Now it was Mazarelle’s turn to hesitate.
“Not exactly. He’s not mentioned there—but he’s the—”
“Merde, Mazarelle—” Coudert swallowed hard. “So you’ve got nothing! How many times did I tell you not to step on Fabriani’s toes? Can’t you understand? Besides—you don’t even have a shred of evidence—”
“But there is evidence—” Mazarelle hurried to get back on track. “We have records of the phone calls between Alain Berthaud and Fabriani. We have this blackmail letter he got from Berthaud. That was the motive for the killing. Why they sent in Vachère.”
He passed the letter across the desk to his boss, and launched right back in.
“And don’t you realize how odd it is that the whole case centers around Fabriani’s commissariat? The dirty cops. The murders. They all started there. Even the interference in my case—that came from his office too.”
Coudert had been reading the letter as the detective talked. When he got to the end, he leaned back, and tossed it onto the desk.
“Mazarelle.”
He took a deep breath. Cleared his throat nervously.
“If some of this…”
There was a silence. Coudert sighed and fiddled with the edges of the letter. “Even if some of this is true…it’s all circumstantial. There’s no mention of any names here. Nothing that ties anyone to anyone else. And certainly not the kind of evidence that could touch Fabriani.”
This wasn’t going the way Mazarelle had intended at all.
“Look,” he insisted. “I know him. He’s the one pulling the strings. He practically admitted it to me.”
Coudert waved him off.
“Even if you had more, lots more, tons more, it wouldn’t matter—”
“Just let me run with this…We can get Legardère to roll over.”
“Mazarelle—what don’t you understand?!” Coudert’s cheeks now matched the burgundy of his tie. “Don’t you know how highly placed he is? His connection to the president? Don’t you realize he’s about to be named interior minister? He’ll be my boss—and yours too. At your age, you still don’t know the way of the world?”
Mazarelle could see the fear in Coudert’s eyes, his patron’s clenched fist. Nevertheless, he persisted. “Patron—we can’t let Fabriani off. He’s a goddamn criminal!”
“Forget it, Mazarelle. Do yourself a favor. You can’t touch him.”
“But—”
“No, Mazarelle. You can’t go there. The case is closed.”
“But—”
“Leave Fabriani alone. That’s an order!” Coudert stood up. Walking over, he opened the door, and pointed the way out. “Please!”
Mazarelle, fuming, got up to leave.
EPILOGUE
On the stairs, heading down, Mazarelle kept replaying the conversation. That insufferable response. Can’t go there. Can’t touch him. Can’t bring him to justice. How could that be the last word on this case? Mazarelle was so preoccupied he almost stumbled on the last step.
Back in his office, his leg hurt more than ever. He grimaced as he sat down, the pain radiating up to his hip.
Rubbing his thigh, he pushed the newspaper on his desk aside. Informed sources were confirming that Fabriani had been selected for a key position in the new administration. Probably the next minister of the interior.
That son of a bitch getting away with it all, untouched. For the first time, Mazarelle thought: Maybe it was time to retire. Maybe he was getting old. Maybe…
He jammed some tobacco into his pipe, and prodded it angrily. And then a little less. Until finally he struck a match.
Then again…maybe not.
A small grin tickled the corners of his mustache.
* * *
—
Outside, it was surprisingly chilly. A new weather system. In the cool air, Mazarelle, walking to his car, felt oddly refreshed.
When he got to Donovan’s, it was too early for Caitlin but not for the cognac Mazarelle craved. He sat down at a table in the back. When his cognac arrived, he took a sip. That was all he needed. He was as ready as he’d ever be. Coudert might be scared. But if you lost on one front, it was time to try another. There were many different ways to win this battle.
He swung his aching leg up onto the banquette, pulled out his mobile phone, and dialed. Even the digits gave him a warm feeling. Claire’s magazine, Paris-Flash.
“Allô, Philippe? Commandant Mazarelle here…”
He settled back into the banquette.
“Do you have your keyboard handy?”
Mazarelle picked up his glass and held it out. Not too close; not too far. He took an appreciative sniff, and nodded to himself. La bonne distance. He smiled.
“So, Philippe…Just off the record…About the new minister…Here’s something that might interest you…”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in it are fictions—or, if in any way similar to actual individuals, are treated as fictions.
But several of the events chronicled here actually did occur. There was an assassination attempt on Jacques Chirac at the Bastille Day parade in 2002, and he did have the good fortune to make it out unscathed. As for the story of his would-be assassin, and the way the plot evolved, they are of course inventions.
Just as Mazarelle recalls, Christophe Adam did indeed spring to culinary fame with his éclair creations, starting with the citrus éclair. From the Paris-Brest to the cherry blossoms of the éclairs fleuris, they would in time become the signature pastry of the Maison Fauchon.
There is a Deauville Film Festival—created in 1975 to honor American cinema—and it does take place at the end of the summer each year, although usually a few weeks later than attended here by Claire’s husband.
The French Foreign Legion, the Légion etrangère, does have a museum and a long and fiercely debated history from 1831 onward—a tradition of propping up the French colonial empire, as well as fighting the war on terror. And while it has no doubt sheltered some dangerous individuals over the years, it has also offered a new start, and a new family, to recruits from more than 140 different countries…Legio Patria Nostra.
The legendary detectives of the Brigade Criminelle have been tracking down kidnappers and murderers since they began in 1924 under the name Brigade spéciale no. 1. When they moved headquarters from the Quai des Orfèvres to the rue du Bastion in 2017, they kept their mythic street number 36. And while there have certainly been instances of police corruption in the arrondissements of Paris, Commissaire Fabriani would want you to know that they are the exception, not the rule.
The rise of white nationalism and the challenges of institutionalized racism faced by the Romani and other immigrant communities over the years (from the Petite Ceinture encampment to the twenty-five migrant detention centers [the CRA]) are unfortunately all too real, and documented weekly on the pages of publications much more somber than Paris-Flash. The United Nations Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, has been helping them from a slightly different Paris address, away from the clutches of Legardère.
The paintings on the walls of the aristo club are quirky reproductions of famous artworks, all with different names and details. Like the club’s loaner jackets, they’re not the real thing but will do in a pinch.
The bars Chez les Jumeaux, and Rosebud do exist, as does the Marseille restaurant Chez Rémy (under a slightly different name), although the bouillabaisse comes from Restaurant Michel. It’s worth noting that after a lot of ferocious debate through the 1980s about exactly which ingredients go into a bouillabaisse, a group of a dozen or so restauranteurs came together, put their pride aside, and agreed on a compromise—the Marseille Bouillabaisse Charter. A lesson, perhaps, for other institutions.
* * *
—
Thanks are owed to many people for their support through these difficult past few years.
First, thanks to you, Mazarelle’s readers, for keeping him in your hearts.
To Georges, Anne, and Valerie Borchardt, our friends for years (and our new friend Cora Markowitz), for championing the novel and seeing it through to publication.
To Nan Talese, whose admiration of and advocacy for Mazarelle has been greatly appreciated. It’s an honor for this novel to be among the titles in her imprint.
To Carolyn Williams at Doubleday, for shepherding the manuscript through the publication process with such grace and enthusiasm.
To Gretchen Crary, for bringing Mazarelle to the world…and into the Instagram age (see on Instagram: @inspector.mazarelle and @2goldbergs).
To Anne Jaconette and Rachel Molland, for spreading the word.
