The Grave Gourmet (2 page)

C
apucine's little rosy cloud of bubbly anticipation had gradually grown into a huge dark thundercloud of frustration and self-recrimination. After a fruitless half hour of striding up and down the labyrinthine corridors of the legendary Escalier A, Troisième étage—hallowed home of La Crim—trying to locate A-36, the office of Rivière's brigadiers, she was close to tears of frustration. Just as she was about to give up and go back to the ground floor receptionist and ask for directions a third time she heard a deep, throaty female voice. “Sometimes Rivière is just too much. I can see him taking a week off for a real training course, but computers! Give me a fucking break. He has trouble even turning his on. I'll bet he just saw it was in Nice and signed up without bothering to read what it was about. He'll be back with one hell of a tan and we'll have gone stir crazy staring at four walls for a whole fucking week.”

A delicate but clearly male voice answered, “Isabelle, your own proclivities should be a better conduit to the understanding of our officer's mind. Those courses are ideal for picking up girls. You should know perfectly well that's Rivière's main interest in life.”

“Listen, you creepy little faggot…” the reply began, but Capucine had caught sight of a miniscule black plastic tag high up on the door frame—“A-36”—and she peeked cautiously around the doorway. The female voice emanated from a young woman in her middle twenties whose muscular body, straight as the trunk of a small tree, supported a head that would have been handsome had the mousy brown hair not been roughly hacked off, apparently by the owner without benefit of a mirror. Her antagonist was a diametric opposite, lithe and fluid as a ballet dancer, with flowing golden locks of a splendor not equaled in shampoo commercials. There was also a third person in the room, a gargantuan North African who glowered silently at his companions.

“Is this A-36?” Capucine asked. The North African mimed “not a clue” by shrugging, hiking his eyebrows, and puffing out his cheeks. The female looked at him and shook her head in scorn—“It's the office number, you idiot”—and, turning to Capucine, “Yes, madame, it is. Can we help you?”

“So, you must be Brenarouch, Martineau, and Lemercier. I'm Lieutenant Le Tellier. You've been assigned to me for a week. Well, actually, I'm filling in for Lieutenant Rivière for a week and we've all been put on a case and really have to get going right away, but it might be nice to spend a few minutes getting to know each other first,” Capucine said in a rush.

The North African, eyeing Capucine's suit, was visibly nonplussed. “Look, uh, Lieutenant, 'scuse me. This is a Crim squad. There must be some sort of mix-up. What is it you do, social work or something like that? You can't be filling in for our lieutenant.”

“I'm sorry, m'dam, my partners have no manners,” the woman said with exaggerated politeness. “The big one is Brigadier Benarouche, Momo, and the cutie over there is Brigadier Marineau, David, and I'm Brigadier Lemercier, Isabelle.” She stood rigidly at attention. Capucine ignored the cynicism.

How far away from the compulsive discipline and order of the fiscal branch this all was, Capucine thought as she surveyed the tiny office. Papers and files were heaped on two desks pushed together in front of the window, the pile of detritus crowned with a Sig in a holster, a box of ammunition, and three pairs of handcuffs. One wall was adorned with the traditional French clerical office cliché: posters of enormous brightly colored multihulled racing yachts skimming over brilliant tropical waters at break-neck speeds. Incongruously, in the middle of these halcyon images was a small Polaroid of an unusually violent-looking young man apparently suffering a serious seizure. He was fat, sweating, and clearly straining desperately to get at the camera or its operator. His mouth was wide open, caught in the extreme of a scream. He heaved Herculeanly at unseen restraints holding him to the chair. Even trapped in the small, dun Polaroid he was terrifying.

“I see you're admiring Omar,” David said chuckling. “He's by far the worst guy we've ever had in here. We hauled him in for some routine background questioning a few months ago. It was like catching the Loch Ness monster when you were fishing for sardines. He went berserk and tried to kill us all. Three guys came in from next door and it took the six of us to get him cuffed to that chair,” he said, indicating the twisted chair against the wall. “He destroyed the chair, as you can see, and he got a few solid head butts in on Isabelle. Finally we had to inject him with a sedative. We let him sit in a cell downstairs for the night and threw him out in the morning. A naturally deranged psychotic. A force of nature. I'm sure he's killed someone by now.” David smiled happily and Isabelle burst into cheerful laughter.

“Why on earth didn't you arrest him?”

“For what? Everyone tries to punch Isabelle. You probably will too even if you're only here for a week,” David said. “Say, is this for real? An actual case? Are we going to get the hell out of here?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely. We have to get going right away. We're already late. A bigwig, the president of Renault, was found dead in Diapason.”

“Where?” Momo asked.

“It's a very fancy restaurant in the Seventh. We'll have to take my car. There were none left in the pool. Come on. Off we go.”

With the whoops of schoolchildren and knowing glances the three brigadiers collected their guns and handcuffs, secreted them in various recesses of their clothing, and shuffled out the door, preceding Capucine.

On the way down the hall Capucine couldn't help overhearing David whispering angrily to Isabelle. “This beats everything. Rivière sneaks off for a week in the sun and we get stuck with some kooky loser on an asshole case. What next?”

I
t was a tight fit for the four of them in Capucine's compact Renault Clio. Momo took the wheel with Capucine next to him while David and Isabelle squeezed uncomfortably into the back. Momo weaved in and out of traffic cursing sotto voce. Normally an aggressive driver, he was greatly affronted by the little car. Clios were notoriously underpowered to begin with and Capucine's had been hamstrung by an automatic transmission.

“
Merde,
Lieutenant, we can't show up at a crime scene in this thing. Some of us have reputations to keep up. Where did you get this piece of crap? At a toy store?” he asked, angrily hammering the accelerator into the floor-board with only minimal effect.

“My husband has pretty much the same reaction. It was a bad choice. I thought it was very cute when I bought it. You should see it with the air-conditioning on. Then it really doesn't move.” Capucine laughed cheerfully.

Out of the corner of her eye Capucine caught David and Isabelle silently mouthing the word “cute” and rolling their eyes.

Within a few minutes Momo tired of his inability to accelerate through traffic and indignantly banged the magnetized flashing blue dome light on the roof of the car. “At least you've got one of these things,” he said with a cynical sideward glance at Capucine.

“Oh, yes, there's even a siren, but I've never used it.”

“Let's not try it now. It would probably stop the car,” David said. Isabelle elbowed him in the ribs delightedly.

Traffic evaporated in front of the throbbing blue light and they arrived quickly in the Seventh, the arrondissement of narrow streets, stately ministries, and imposing embassies, where a machine-gun–toting policeman seemed to guard almost every other entrance. Le Diapason, at the apex of a sharply pointed corner, jutted out grandly like the bow of a stately yacht. Two police vehicles, a van and an unmarked sedan, made conspicuous by their oversized jutting antennas, were double-parked on the street.

Inside, a covey of uniformed police from the local commissariat milled around at loose ends. When Capucine strode in purposefully followed by her shambling brigadiers only one or two of the uniformed police gave them even a cursory glance. Taken aback at the lack of reaction, Capucine was at a momentary loss at how to proceed. Irritated at the hesitation, Isabelle snorted and went up to one of the policemen. “
Salut, mon pote
, what's happening?” she said.

“What the hell does it look like? We get to stand around for hours doing fuckall until the P.J. turn up. Then we go back to the commissariat. It's highly motivating. Are you guys here to relieve us?”

“We sure are. Where's your officer?”

The policeman disdainfully nodded at a large eight-top in a back corner where five men sat. “The fat guy,” the policeman said. “He's probably hoping they're going to serve him lunch.”

A florid man with a protuberant potbelly ballooning out of a cheap suit had already started to walk over. He came up to Isabelle and stuck out his hand. “Lieutenant Duchamps. Madame, are you in charge?”

“Not even close. Try that one,” she replied, jerking her thumb at Capucine.

Suspecting some sort of joke was being played on him, Duchamps walked over to Capucine and stuck out his hand again, “Lieutenant Duchamps of the Seventh Arrondissement West Commissariat. And you are?”

“Lieutenant Le Tellier, Police Judiciare.”

“Ah, finally. We've been waiting for you all morning. “I'll give you the grand tour and leave you to it. I have no idea why you people were called in. Looks like a perfectly straightforward case of food poisoning to me. Some restaurant employee panicked and stuffed the stiff in the fridge,” Duchamps said peevishly. “If I could get these guys down to the commissariat”—he nodded at the large round table where he had been sitting—“I'd have the answer out of them in no time, but I guess I don't have to teach the P.J. anything about that.” He guffawed unpleasantly and glanced disdainfully at Capucine to see if she would share in the joke. She looked at him levelly.

“Anyway, those guys are the head chef, who apparently owns the place, the number two chef, the sommelier, and the maître d'.” Capucine recognized them all. Three wore the lugubrious look de rigueur at wakes, but Labrousse was genuinely stricken, staring down at the table, slack mouthed, like a drunk waiting to be taken home after the party is over. Her heart went out to him.

“The head chef says he discovered the body when he came in this morning. The other three showed up right after we got here. There are thirty-two other employees who turned up later. We interviewed them briefly, finger-printed them, and sent them home. This is a list of their names and the phones where they can be reached for the rest of the day,” he said, handing her a sheet of paper.

“The story is the bigwig, Delage, ate here on Friday evening with a pal and then left. No one admits to knowing anything more.”

Capucine nodded.

“Anyway, I kept those four here for you guys to have something to bite into,” Duchamps said, jabbing the air behind his back with his thumb.

“That's perfect,” said Capucine.

“Body's in the kitchen back here,” Duchamps said, starting for the back. They pushed through a pair of swinging doors with small glass ports—superfluous precautions intended to prevent waiters from banging into each other—and into a room as sterile as an operating theater in white tile and brushed stainless steel.

“There you go,” Duchamps said, pointing at an open metal door in the back wall. “The chef said the door was shut tight when he arrived.” The body was just inside the sill, lying on its side, hideously contorted from the pains of death. The victim's expensive flannel suit was twisted around the limbs, and the toes of his shoes were deeply scuffed. A small pool of thin white fluid had congealed on the floor next to the mouth. Close up the odor was overpowering. Behind the body, the walk-in was lined with steel shelves stacked with plastic containers and wooden pallets of fruits, eggs, and vegetables. Given the empty spaces, it was obvious the Monday morning deliveries had been turned away by the police.

It was the first time Capucine had ever seen a dead body. The room spun and she felt her breakfast rise in her throat. She spoke more sharply to Duchamps than she intended. “
Très bien
. We've got it now. No need for your people to remain any longer,” and turned on her heel before he could reply. She beckoned to Isabelle. “Brigadier, I have to deal with the restaurant staff out there for a few moments. Make sure nobody touches the body until the forensic people turn up and don't let anyone move or handle anything until I get back.”

It was all she could do to get out of the kitchen without throwing up.

In the dining room Labrousse had left the table and was roving aimlessly, straightening chairs and smoothing table pads. He looked even more disoriented than when she had arrived. Capucine walked up to him and touched his arm. Labrousse started.

“Ca…Capucine. What are you doing here?” He paused, his mouth partially open. “Of course. You are with the Police Judiciaire. I had forgotten. I always think of you simply as Alexandre's dear wife.” He spoke dully with a thick tongue, as if doped. Capucine grasped his arm above the elbow in a motherly gesture and gently led him to a table in a far corner.

He told Capucine his story in a despondent monotone. He had arrived at the restaurant punctually at eight that morning. He always came in early on Mondays to make sure nothing was amiss and to plan out his week. He had gone straight to the walk-in to see if any of the produce had lost its freshness. He had discovered the body. He had recognized it was Delage. He had called the police. That was it.

“I understand Monsieur Delage was here for dinner on Friday. Did you talk to him?” Capucine asked.

“Yes, I came out briefly in the middle of the service to greet the patrons. I almost never do that, but I just could not ignore Jean-Louis. I chatted with him for a few moments. Sadly, that was all the time I could spare.” Labrousse paused. “This is a deep wound for me. I've known poor Jean-Louis for nearly thirty-five years. We were friends when we were students.” His eyes focused on the middle distance as he lived his memories.

“Do you remember what he ate?”

“No, but a copy of what he ordered will be in my office. We keep everything until the accountant comes in on Wednesdays. They're on a clipboard on my desk.”

Capucine motioned David over and asked him to go to the office and see if he could find the dupe sheets.

In a few minutes he came back with a thick stack of greasy scribbled forms clipped to an aluminum board. He also had a sheet of cream coverstock paper folded into thirds.

“Here you go,” he said. “I also found this. I think it's a menu that shows the number codes they use on the dupes.” Capucine decided that there was hope for David.

Labrousse thumbed through the pile of forms and held one out to Capucine. “Voilà
.
Table 8.”

After the effort he fell silent again, exhausted. He looked at Capucine with doleful eyes. “I have no idea what to do. I suppose I must do the dinner service. I hope I can find the energy.”

At that point the four members of the forensic squad arrived noisily, heading directly for the kitchen pushing a rattling gurney and carrying a seemingly absurd amount of equipment in black bags and shiny aluminum cases.

“Jean-Basile,” Capucine continued gently once the racket died down, familiarly using his given name for the first time in her life. “Things may be a little complicated. I don't think the police will let you open for several days. You need to go home now and get some rest. A brigadier will take you and stay there with you. When you've had a chance to recover I'll ask you to come to the prefecture and I'll take your deposition. There's no rush at all.” She talked gently to him for a while, shocked at his disarray. When he seemed to have regained some composure she beckoned to David and told him to take Labrousse to his apartment in a cab and stay with him until they were called to the Quai.

When Labrousse left she went over to the eight-top where the three staff members huddled silently. She kept all three at the table and began with the
chef
-s
aucier
. He told his story in the overloud monotone of a man interviewed at the scene of a road accident. He had arrived at nine thirty to find the police from the commissariat already there and had been barred from the kitchen. He had no useful information about Friday night as he had not left the kitchen nor even looked through the windows of the double doors during the entire service. Capucine let him leave.

The maître d' had arrived a few minutes after the
chef
-s
aucier
. He remembered Delage at dinner on Friday quite well. He had eaten with another man, a certain Martin Fleuret, a lawyer, also well known to the restaurant. He had paid the bill with a
Carte Bleue
Visa card. Both had left a little after ten thirty.

“No, no, hold on,” he added. “Just as the other man left, Président Delage came back to wash his hands,” he said, using the polite euphemism for going to the toilet.

“Did he look at all ill?” Capucine asked.

“Not in the slightest. He actually seemed quite happy. Almost proud of himself. He went to the WC in the front of the restaurant for a few minutes and left right after. I'm sure of it. I wished him good night as he walked through the doors.”

“Do you know if he was taken home by his driver?” Capucine asked.

“I wouldn't think he was,” the maître d' said. “He didn't like to make his driver wait in the street while he ate and he liked to walk after eating if the weather was fine. He told me that many times.”

“And did you see if he came back later? Say, because he had lost something or didn't feel well?”

“No, definitely not. If he had, the coat check girl or the hostess would have alerted me.”

Capucine sent the maître d' off, telling him that that he would be convoked to the Quai des Orfèvres in the next few days to sign a deposition.

Only the sommelier appeared unaffected by the death. Even in jeans and a leather jacket he continued to exude a professional aura of saturnine omniscience. Perhaps it was the tight shiny helmet of brilliantined hair. His lips were pinched in irritation. “Lieutenant, I have been prevented from examining my
cave
. It's vital I determine if any damage has been done. Also, there can be no question of the police traipsing around down there without my supervision. Some of the bottles are irreplaceable and absolutely cannot be disturbed or even touched. Absolutely no one must be allowed in my cellar without me. Is that perfectly clear?”

“Monsieur Rolland, surely you remember me?”

“
Oh là là
. Madame de Huguelet, I'm so sorry. I just didn't recognize you without your husband. Forgive me. You have no idea how upsetting this all is. All I can think of is an army of barbarian flics pulling all my bottles down and shaking them while they dust for fingerprints or whatever. That would be an unconscionable catastrophe.”

“Don't give it a second thought. I'll supervise the investigation of the cellar myself. Tell me about Président Delage. How did he behave during dinner?”

“Madame, it was the same as it always was with him. He ordered only one wine, a Forts de Latour 2000, the sort of thing he always drank. Sound, expensive without being extravagant, uninspired. He was never willing to take an adventure with his wine. He and his guest drank sparingly. There was well over a quarter of a bottle remaining when the meal was over. I poured for them myself, but each time I came up he and his guest fell silent. Of course, most people do that. He refused an after-dinner
alcool
and voilà, that was that. Do you think I might run downstairs for a quick look to see if everything is in order?” His eyes darkened in anger when denied and darkened further still when Capucine told him he was to go home.